Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Blithedale Romance Annotated and Illustrated Edition Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Blithedale Romance is Nathaniel Hawthorne's third novel, one that is sometimes overlooked by readers but is nonetheless considered one of his most critically important works. Hawthorne wrote the novel in 1851 while staying at Horace Mann's house in West Newton, Massachusetts, and published it in 1852. It is the only one of Hawthorne's novels to have a first-person narrator. Coverdale's narration has a dreamlike quality to it, leading many to label the work as a romance. One of the notable aspects of the novel is that it is based off of Hawthorne's own short-lived experience at Brook Farm, where he spent a few months in 1841 (see Additional Content). Many of the characters were based on real people, although they were not perfect likenesses. Scholars continually probe the intersection between fiction and nonfiction, attempting to ascertain what is based on Hawthorne's time at Brook Farm versus what was embellished or invented by the author.