Object details
Object number
U3n42
Creator(s)
Title
The Scarlet Letter
Date
1850
Medium
Ink on paper with cloth covered binding
Language
English
Publication Place
Boston
Binding Description
Original brown cloth; yellow lining-leaves.
Description
iv, 322 p. ; 18 cm.
Dimensions
19 x 19.5 x 2.8 cm (7 1/2 x 7 11/16 x 1 1/8 in.)
Signatures, inscriptions, and markings
Dedicated in ink (center of front endpaper): Nath' Hawthorne to James T. Fields
Enclosed: Letter from Nathaniel Hawthorne to James T. Fields, Liverpool, 13 October 1853 (pasted onto front paste-down endpaper, see U3n42.x)
Provenance
Presented by Nathaniel Hawthorne to publisher, editor, writer, and lecturer James Thomas Fields (1817-1881).
Gift from Annie Adams Fields (1834-1915), literary hostess, author, and social reformer, to Isabella Stewart Gardner sometime between 1881 and 1915.
Commentary
This first edition of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter (1850) contains a dedication from the author to his publisher James T. Fields as well as a letter from Hawthorne to Fields. Gardner collected a number of works by Hawthorne and even placed a lock of his hair alongside this book in a case in the Blue Room.
Bibliography
Isabella Stewart Gardner. A Choice of Books from the Library of Isabella Stewart Gardner, Fenway Court (Boston, 1906), p. 33. ("First edition")
Gallery
Blue Room
Case
Okakura Case
Rights and reproductions
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