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American Literary Studies
The Hawthorne Family Papers
The Collection
Location: Department of Special Collections, Green Library
Call Number: M0981
Size: 67 items
Finding Guide: A printed version is available in the reading
room of the Department of Special Collections. Electronic versions of
this finding guide are also available. If you have Microsoft's Internet
Explorer version 6.0 or higher, click here to connect to the XML version
on the Stanford server; if not, click here for the html version on the
Online Archives of California server.
Research Access and Use: Materials in the Department of Special
Collections are non-circulating and must be used in the Special Collections'
Reading Room in the Cecil H. Green Library. The Reading Room is open
10:00am to 5:00pm Monday through Friday. Photocopies, photographs, and
microfilm can be made of some materials in the collections. For more
information about the collections and access policies, please contact
Special Collections by telephone at (650) 725-1022, by electronic mail
at speccollref@stanford.edu or by regular mail at the Department of Special
Collections, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, California 94305-6004.
Highlights and Research Potential of the Papers:
The Hawthorne family papers consist of manuscripts, letters, journals,
and sketch books from Sophia Peabody Hawthorne, who was Nathaniel Hawthorne's
wife, and from two of their children, the son Julian and the younger daughter,
Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, both writers themselves. Documents in the collection
indicate that these papers were originally owned by Rose Hawthorne Lathrop,
who gave them in 1921 to Clifford Smyth, the husband of Julian's daughter
Beatrix, who was Rose's much adored niece.
Career of Sophia Hawthorne, 1809 - 1871:
Sophia Amelia Peabody was born September 21, 1809 to Elizabeth Palmer
Peabody and Nathaniel Peabody. She attended a school run by her mother
and sister in Salem, Massachusetts and upon graduation, became a teacher
there as well. In December of 1833, Sophia and her sister Mary traveled
with the family of Richard Cleveland to Cuba. Her letters home were collected
and circulated among friends by her mother under the title Cuba Journal.
After returning from Cuba in 1835, Sophia achieved a reputation as a copyist
of artworks, which led to a meeting with Nathaniel Hawthorne, who engaged
her to illustrate the published edition of The Gentle Boy (1839),
which he in turn dedicated to her. In 1842, Sophia and Nathaniel Hawthorne
were married and moved into the Old Manse in Concord. Together they had
three children: Una in 1844, Julian in 1846, and Rose in 1851. In 1852,
Hawthorne was appointed U.S. Consul to England and the family moved to
Liverpool. After the completion of his term of office, they traveled about
Europe, returning to Wayside, their house in Concord, in 1858, where they
remained until Hawthorne’s death in 1864. In 1865 Sophia edited his
notebooks for a series of articles in the Atlantic Monthly; they
were later collected under the title Passages from the American Notebooks
(1868). Moving to London in 1868, she supported herself by publishing
her own travel writings, Notes in England and Italy (1870). She
spent her last years transcribing other of her husband’s journals,
which were eventually published as Passages from the French and Italian
Notebooks of Nathaniel Hawthorne (1878), seven years after her death.
Career of Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, 1851 - 1926:
Born in Lenox, Massachusetts, on May 20, 1851, Rose Hawthorne was educated
abroad in London, Paris, Rome, and Florence. In 1883, she married George
Parsons Lathrop, who became assistant editor of Atlantic Monthly,
and who also edited a collected edition of Hawthorne's works. Her first
published work was a book of poems, Along the Shore(1888). She
later separated from her husband and moved to New York where she began
caring for the cancerous poor. In an effort to support her charity work
she wrote Memories of Hawthorne (1897) which drew on her mother’s
journals and letters. She converted to Catholicism in 1900 and took vows
in the Dominican order, assuming the title "Mother Alphonsa."
She went on to found the Servants of Relief for Incurable Cancer and spent
the remainder of her life in this service.
Description of the Papers:
Sophia Hawthorne Letters (32 letters)
Small segments of some of these letters have been published in Rose Hawthorne
Lathrop's Memories of Hawthorne (1897), which prints portions of
23 of them. Among the 9 letters that do not appear in Memories of Hawthorne
are two letters containing passages about Herman Melville. The second
of these, dated 24 October 1851, devotes two of its 8 pages to Sophia's
impression of Melville and is especially remarkable.
Sophia Hawthorne Journals (4 journals, c.100+ holograph pages)
These journals open a more intimate window onto the mind of Sophia and
the Hawthorne milieu than do the letters. The journals from 1832 and 1833
appear especially notable, since in they pre-date her visit to Cuba, a
period for which only 4 other journals exist.
Sophia Hawthorne Sketchbooks (2 sketchbooks)
These notebooks contain a few drawings and watercolor fragments by Sophia
Hawthorne; many more are by her daughter Rose, when she was a child.
Letters to Sophia and Nathaniel Hawthorne (22 letters)
Particularly notable in this series are the letters from R.W. Emerson
and George Hillard. Among the remaining letters, correspondents Ellen
Channing, Mrs. Hall, Elizabeth Hoar, and Mrs. James Russell Lowell are
particularly useful in showing the manner of communication among the women
in the greater Concord circle.
Julian Hawthorne Letters (23 letters)
All but three of the letters are to Julian’s son-in-law Clifford
Smyth, a literary editor and historian. Of the remaining three, two are
childhood notes, written in pencil, one to his grandmother, Mrs. Elizabeth
Peabody, and the other to his aunt, Mrs. Elizabeth Peabody Mann.
Rose Lathrop Hawthorne Letters and Manuscripts (56 letters, literary
manuscripts, and juvenalia)
Virtually all of these letters are written from Rosary Hill Home to Beatrix,
Rose's niece and the wife of Clifford Smyth, some of which appear in her
book, Memories of Hawthorne (1897) Long, intimate, often highly emotional
pieces, they provide striking insight into Rose Hawthorne Lathrop from
1913 until her death in 1926. Also included are c. 450 pages of holograph
manuscripts which, though undated, can be placed as pre-1900, during the
later years of her estranged marriage and the early years of her Catholic
service. The manuscripts consist of complete drafts of short stories and
substantial fragments of several novels. None of these manuscripts seem
to have been previously published. Also present are two other items of
interest: a copybook dated 1858, when Rose was seven, with penmanship
exercises and numerous poems, and a holograph journal from 1873, when
she was 22.
Selected Criticism of Sophia Hawthorne
- Valenti, Patricia Dunlavy "Sophia Peabody Hawthorne: A Study
of Artistic Influence" In
Studies in the American Renaissance: 1 - 22.
Selected Writings and Criticism of Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
- Culbertson, Diana, Ed., Selected Writings of Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
(New York : Paulist Press, 1993)
Selected Biography and Autobiography of Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
- Burton, Katherine, Sorrow Built a Bridge: A Daughter of Hawthorne
(London : Longman, Greens, 1937) PS2231 .B8
- Joseph, M. Out of Many Hearts. (Hawthorne, NY : Servants of
Relief for Incurable Cancer, 1965.
- Lathrop, Rose Hawthorne. Memories of Hawthorne. (New York :
Houghton, Mifflin, 1897) 813.3.H392Lt
- Maynard, Theodore. A Fire Was Lighted : The Life of Rose Hawthorne
Lathrop. (Milwaukee : Bruce Publishing Company, 1948) BX4705 .L35
M3
- Valenti, Patricia Dunlavy. To Myself a Stranger : A Biography of
Rose Hawthorne Lathrop. (Baton, LA : Louisiana State University
Press, 1991) PS 2231 .V35
- Vance, Marguerite. On the Wings of Fire: The Story of Nathaniel
Hawthorne's Daughter, Rose (Mother Alphonsa). (New York : Dutton,
1955.) BX4705 .L35 V3
- Gaeddert, LouAnn. A New England Love Story: Nathaniel Hawthorne
and Sophia Peabody.
(NY : The Dial Press, 1980)
- Tharp, Louise Hall. The Peabody Sisters of Salem. (London :
George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd, 1951) 974.45 .P354T
Other Manuscript Depositories
For Sophia Hawthorne, the Berg
Collection at New York Public Library is the major repository, holding
most of the extant letters, many of her journals, and hundreds of letters
received by her.
For Julian Hawthorne, the Bancroft
Library at UC-Berkeley owns the principal collection.
Rose Hawthorne's papers are dispersed among a number of different institutions,
with the larger concentrations at the Peabody
Essex Institute and at the Rosary
Hill Home for Incurable Cancer in Hawthorne N.Y.
Related Manuscript Collections at Stanford
- Bridge, Horatio. DIARY, 1840.
Special Collections Misc 135 - Item CSUR85-A156 (Archives)
Last modified:
September 21, 2007
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