Hawthorne Holdings in the Special Collections

The Concord Free Public Library has a modest research collection relating to Nathaniel Hawthorne and his family. The Library owns the first chapter of The Dolliver Romance in manuscript (also on microfilm), as well as several autograph letters by Nathaniel and Sophia Hawthorne. The Special Collections include 19th and 20th century newspaper clippings, periodical articles, reprints, and research papers about Hawthorne--primarily items of a biographical or critical nature. In addition, the Library's art collection includes a marble bust of Hawthorne by Louisa Lander and a pastel portrait of Una Hawthorne. Concord's manuscript and pamphlet collections are continually expanding through gift and purchase.

The Library's Concord Authors collection contains a sizeable and growing Hawthorne collection, consisting of first and later editions of Hawthorne's writings, several sets of his complete works, items to which he contributed pieces or which he edited, and biographical, bibliographical, and critical material about him.  Moreover, the Library owns several books once belonging to Hawthorne or to members of his family. Hawthorne-related volumes in the Concord Authors Collection may be searched through the database of the Minuteman Library Network.

On the occasion of the reinterment of Sophia and Una Hawthorne on June 26, 2006 in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne deposited in the William Munroe Special Collections Sophia Hawthorne's diary for 1866, and two letters, one by Sophia Hawthorne and one by Una. These materials will be accessible to researchers in the Concord Free Public Library until mid-June 2007. Please contact the Curator of Special Collections (lwilson@minlib.net) for additional information.

Finding aids:

Nathaniel Hawthorne Papers, 1848-[1863].

Hawthorne Family Correspondence, 1865-1935.

Hawthorne Books: Volumes from the Library of Nathaniel Hawthorne and the Hawthorne Family, or Otherwise Associated with the Hawthornes, 1820-1852.