From the self-withdrawn Fanshawe through the posthumously issued Dr Grimshaw's Secret, this compilation of reviews and notices traces Nathaniel Hawthorne's rise from obscurity to world renown as a writer placed in the ranks of Carlyle, Dickens and Shakespeare. Reviews by Henry Fothergill Chorley, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, Margaret Fuller, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, Edwin Whipple, Henry James, Edith Simcox, William Dean Howells and many others respond to Hawthorne's tales, romances, notebooks, and fragmentary works in efforts to capture and define the nature of Hawthorne's mind and the quality of his art. The introduction explores the thematic concerns taken up by reviewers, focusing on the elements of Hawthorne's life and art of most interest to his contemporary readers. Several retrospective reviews, one appearing as early as the 1840s, provide thoughtful estimates of Hawthorne's achievement.
