[Hawthorne, Nathaniel (1804-1864).] "The Young Provincial." In: The Token; A Christmas and New Year’s Present. Edited by S.G. Goodrich. Boston: Carter and Hendee, 1830.

Hawthorne’s second published appearance of fiction, his tale “The Young Provincial,” preceded only by Fanshawe in 1828. The Token was a popular “gift-book”—an elegant miscellany of prose, poetry, and illustration—timed to appear each year just before the Christmas holiday. Hawthorne’s relationship with Samuel Griswold Goodrich, its editor, proved to be fruitful (if poorly compensated) in terms of publishing much of his important early, often unsigned work, over the coming decade. Hawthorne biographer Brenda Wineapple describes Goodrich as a “feral man with a stout heart and a nose for writing,” who claimed to have initiated the meeting with Hawthorne after reading Fanshawe—a book he said “seemed to me to indicate extraordinary powers.” Wineapple suggests however that “more likely is that Hawthorne’s Bowdoin classmate the Reverend George B. Cheever, himself a Salem writer, encouraged Hawthorne to approach Goodrich after Hawthorne had complained no one wanted to publish his book” (p.74).

In addition to Hawthorne, The Token printed the work of his contemporaries, including John Neal and John Greenleaf Whittier, alongside both major and minor women writers of the day. This volume also includes “To the Memory of J.G.C. Brainard” and “The Schoolmistress” by Lydia Howard Huntley Sigourney (“Mrs Sigourney”); an unsigned story by Catharine Maria Sedgwick called “The Country Cousin” (attributed to “the author of ‘Hope Leslie’”); “The Huguenot Daughter” by Hannah Dorset,” and “The Utilitarian” by John Neal. BAL 7571; Clark G25.

16mo. Frontispiece and engraved title (front hinge tender). Original purple silk, all edges gilt (spine a little faded, ends and tips rubbed); modern slipcase.