NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

ACTING IN HIS OFFICIAL POSITION AS U.S. CONSUL IN LIVERPOOL, ARRANGES FUNDING FOR DESTITUTE AMERICAN SEAMEN MADE BY HIS FRIEND WILLIAM D. TICKNOR, THE PUBLISHER WHO WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR PRODUCING HAWTHORNE’S WORKS IN THE USA

HAWTHORNE, NATHANIEL.  (1804-1864). American novelist and short-story writer; wrote: The Scarlet Letter (1850), The House of Seven Gables (1851) and Twice Told Tales (1837);  because of his friendship with President Franklin Pierce, Hawthorne was rewarded in 1853 with the position of United States consul in Liverpool shortly after the publication of Tanglewood Tales; the position was considered the most lucrative foreign service position at the time, second only to that of Ambassador to Great Britain. Rare Partly-printed Document Signed, “Nathl. Hawthorne”, as U.S. Consul at Liverpool.  One page, large oblong octavo.  Liverpool, June 20, 1855.  Thirty-day sight-draft addressed to the Secretary of State in Washington, and ordering payment to “William D. Ticknor the sum of twelve hundred and ninety-one dollars & 31/100 equal to £252.17.08 sterling…to place to the Account…for disbursement for destitute Seamen….”  

 

WILLIAM TICKNOR (1810-1864) was the first of the great American literary publishers. Operating from the Old Corner Book Store in Boston, ‘Ticknor and Fields’ published the works of Horatio Alger, Lydia Maria Child, Charles Dickens, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Tennyson, Henry David Thoreau, Mark Twain, and John Greenleaf Whittier.  Just a great association piece further attesting to the friendship of the writer and his publisher, in aide of destitute American seamen!  Anything written or bearing Hawthorne’s signature is of some scarcity, and while documents signed by him in this position are among the most available, this rather unique example of a financial draft in support of US seamen is extremely rare.  Fine condition. 

 

$5000.00