Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Blithedale Romance Nathaniel Hawthorne

Publisher Marketing: The evening before my departure for Blithedale, I was returning to my bachelor apartments, after attending the wonderful exhibition of the Veiled Lady, when an elderly man of rather shabby appearance met me in an obscure part of the street. "Mr. Coverdale," said he softly, "can I speak with you a moment?" As I have casually alluded to the Veiled Lady, it may not be amiss to mention, for the benefit of such of my readers as are unacquainted with her now forgotten celebrity, that she was a phenomenon in the mesmeric line; one of the earliest that had indicated the birth of a new science, or the revival of an old humbug. Since those times her sisterhood have grown too numerous to attract much individual notice; nor, in fact, has any one of them come before the public under such skilfully contrived circumstances of stage effect as those which at once mystified and illuminated the remarkable performances of the lady in question. Nowadays, in the management of his "subject," "clairvoyant," or "medium," the exhibitor affects the simplicity and openness of scientific experiment; and even if he profess to tread a step or two across the boundaries of the spiritual world, yet carries with him the laws of our actual life and extends them over his preternatural conquests. Twelve or fifteen years ago, on the contrary, all the arts of mysterious arrangement, of picturesque disposition, and artistically contrasted light and shade, were made available, in order to set the apparent miracle in the strongest attitude of opposition to ordinary facts. Review Citations: Wilson Fiction Catalog 01/01/2010 pg. 338 (EAN 9780199554867, Paperback) Wilson Fiction Catalog 01/01/2014 pg. 417 (EAN 9780199554867, Paperback) Contributor Bio:  Hawthorne, Nathaniel Nathaniel Hawthorne was one of the first American writers to embrace the themes of Puritan New England, focusing much of his writing on humanity's sins and moral obligations to the broader community. Part of the Romantic movement, Hawthorne is the author of the masterpiece The Scarlet Letter, as well as The House of the Seven Gables, Twice Told Tales, and many other works of fiction. Hawthorne died in 1864.