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HAWTHORNE'S FULLER MYSTERY

Name: HAWTHORNE'S FULLER MYSTERY
Author: Thomas R. Mitchell
ISBN: 1-55849-170-8

by Thomas R. Mitchell ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 1, 1998

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A well-researched, persuasive reexamination of the paradoxical relations between two classic American authors. When Margaret Fuller died in 1850, she was regarded as one of the most important writers and activists of the time—a leading figure in Emerson’s Transcendentalist circle and the highest embodiment of the “New Woman” who entered the public arena to debate social and political issues. Yet in 1884, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s son, Julian, published a biography of his famous father that would destroy Fuller’s literary reputation until the 1960s. The popular book contained a short passage from Hawthorne’s journal in which he jeered at her Italian husband, who drowned with her and their baby in a shipwreck off the coast of Fire Island, and concluded that Fuller’s intellectual brilliance was a fraud, a thin covering for her true “defective and evil nature” (i.e., her alleged lustfulness). Julian used the virulent passage to present his father as an ideal middle-class husband who was an enemy of Fuller and her feminist ilk. Though the son’s glowing portrayal of Hawthorne has long since come undone, his version of Hawthorne’s hostility to Fuller held sway for remarkably long. In this well-argued and engaging book, however, Mitchell (Laredo Community Coll.) draws on extensive citations from both writers’ journals and letters, while also offering a close analysis of Hawthorne’s texts, to show that the truth of Fuller’s character was not as reported. Fuller and Hawthorne in fact enjoyed an intense, possibly intimate friendship for five years before she left Boston for New York (and later Italy). Both fascinated and repelled by Fuller’s brilliance and charisma, which he found seductive as well as threatening, Hawthorne was inspired by his passionate attempts to understand her, says Mitchell, to create many of his greatest female characters (e.g., Hester Pryne). In an impressive achievement, Mitchell captures the fiery temperament of each while also untangling their complicated friendship and its literary import.

Pub Date: Dec. 1, 1998

ISBN: 1-55849-170-8

Page Count: 336

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1998

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.