THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES - NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE- CLASSIC COLLECTIBLE

• Title: The House of the Seven Gables

• Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne

• Edition: Visitors' Edition (noted in contents: "Note to the Visitors' Edition")

• Publisher / Printer: Houghton Mifflin Company (Boston and New York) / The Riverside Press, Cambridge

• Copyright Date: 1913

• Binding & Format: Olive-green cloth with a pictorial Arts & Crafts style color illustration on the front cover depicting the Turner-Ingersoll house in yellow and dark green under stylized clouds; illustrated throughout with photographic plates showing the actual historic house and grounds in Salem, Massachusetts.

Interesting Facts

• The Settlement House Tie-In: In 1908–1910, philanthropist Caroline O. Emmerton purchased the historic 1668 Turner-Ingersoll mansion in Salem, restored it with architect Joseph Everett Chandler to match Hawthorne's literary description, and opened it as a historic site to fund a settlement house for local immigrant families. In 1913, Houghton Mifflin published this dedicated "Visitors' Edition" specifically to be sold to tourists and pilgrims visiting the newly restored mansion in Salem.

• Photographs vs. Drawings: Unlike standard illustrated editions of the era that featured artist sketches or woodcuts, the Visitors' Edition is distinctive for including real black-and-white photographic half-tones of the restored rooms, secret staircase, garden, and exterior (as seen in the frontispiece).

• The Salem Witch Trials Curse: Hawthorne's romance was inspired by his own deep family guilt over the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. His great-great-grandfather, John Hathorne, was the only magistrate involved who never repented of his actions. Hawthorne added the "w" to his last name in his twenties partly to dissociate himself from his ancestor, and the novel's famous dying curse placed on the fictional Colonel Pyncheon directly echoes the real-life curse Sarah Good reportedly leveled at magistrate Nicholas Noyes at the gallows.