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Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1839
Details
The Sister Years
Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1839
[HAWTHORNE, Nathaniel (1804-1864). The Sister Years; Being the Carrier's Address to the Patrons of the Salem Gazette, for the First of January, 1839. Salem: the Gazette, 1839.
"I have several bundles of love-letters eloquently breathing an eternity of burning passion which grew cold and perished almost before the ink was dry..." — the Old Year, in "The Sister Years"
One of the rarest Hawthorne first editions, last recorded in RBH in 1954, the ephemeral "The Sister Years." The Salem Gazette distributed the tale several years before it was collected in Twice-Told Tales. Stephen Wakeman's 1924 auction catalogue described "The Sister Years" as "excessively rare" and estimated that it was one of only six known copies. The allegorical tale of a meeting between two women, the haggard Old Year and the lightsome New Year, takes place on New Year's Eve, "between eleven and twelve o'clock, when the Old Year was leaving her final footprints on the borders of Time's empire." BAL 7586; Clark A5.1.
Octavo (405 x 148mm). 8 pp., unbound as issued (light dampstain to upper corner, some minor soiling, edges curling just a little); green cloth envelope case (worn). Provenance: Walpole Galleries, 4 May 1923, lot 172.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1839
[HAWTHORNE, Nathaniel (1804-1864). The Sister Years; Being the Carrier's Address to the Patrons of the Salem Gazette, for the First of January, 1839. Salem: the Gazette, 1839.
"I have several bundles of love-letters eloquently breathing an eternity of burning passion which grew cold and perished almost before the ink was dry..." — the Old Year, in "The Sister Years"
One of the rarest Hawthorne first editions, last recorded in RBH in 1954, the ephemeral "The Sister Years." The Salem Gazette distributed the tale several years before it was collected in Twice-Told Tales. Stephen Wakeman's 1924 auction catalogue described "The Sister Years" as "excessively rare" and estimated that it was one of only six known copies. The allegorical tale of a meeting between two women, the haggard Old Year and the lightsome New Year, takes place on New Year's Eve, "between eleven and twelve o'clock, when the Old Year was leaving her final footprints on the borders of Time's empire." BAL 7586; Clark A5.1.
Octavo (405 x 148mm). 8 pp., unbound as issued (light dampstain to upper corner, some minor soiling, edges curling just a little); green cloth envelope case (worn). Provenance: Walpole Galleries, 4 May 1923, lot 172.
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Heather Weintraub
Specialist, Books, Manuscripts, & Archives