NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Join Molly Rideout for a free presentation discussing Hawthorne's time in North Adams, and what her archival research uncovered about the men and women he met while visiting.

 

The talk will be held in 3rd floor community room on Aug. 6 at 6 pm. Books will be available for signing and purchase. 

 

According to a press release:

 

In 1838 a not-yet-famous Nathaniel Hawthorne left his home in Salem for a 6-week trip to North Adams. He told his future wife's family that he would be traveling under an assumed name, and wouldn't write any letters home. To this day, no one knows what prompted his journey.

 

Hawthorne captured his journey in a journal, recording vivid scenes of a North Adams still building to its full industrialization, and the characters that inhabited town. Hawthorne reports on funerals, weddings, a circus, a traveling dentist performing a tooth extraction in the street, a hook-armed former-lawyer who now could only make a living rendering soap, and so much more.

 

Originally published in 1868 as part of his larger American Note-Books, North Adams' own Bear & Bee Bookshop has now published Hawthorne's North Adams journals as a standalone book titled "The North Adams Note-Books of Nathaniel Hawthorne," with an introduction and extensive local history footnotes by author Molly Rideout.