SOURCE: Valenti, Patricia Dunlavy. “Sophia Peabody Hawthorne's American Notebooks.” Studies in the American Renaissance (1996): 115-28.

In the following excerpt, Valenti discusses Hawthorne's editing of her husband's journals, contrasting entries written by Sophia and by Nathaniel in the family notebooks from which the published Hawthorne journals were derived.

Within months of Nathaniel Hawthorne's death, James T. Fields suggested to Sophia Hawthorne the publication of a series of extracts from her husband's journals. Sophia initially rejected this overture, but her financial situation quickly dictated that she accept the enticing offer of ＄100.00 per installment for the publication of “gems” from her husband's notebooks. Sophia thus began the work of selecting, editing, and copying pages from these notebooks. The first installment, an excerpt from Nathaniel's earliest journal,¹ appeared in the January 1866 issue of the Atlantic Monthly. Fields then suggested that Sophia further mine the journals to produce a book, and she agreed...