HAWTHORNE, NATHANIEL. The Scarlet Letter. Lacking advertisements. 8vo, original blind-stamped brown cloth, spine lettered in gilt, rebacked and recased, corners rubbed with exposure, dampstaining; contents show sporadic spotting and staining throughout, ownership signature to front free endpaper; custom cloth clamshell box. Boston: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, 1850
first edition, first printing, concord association copy, ex-collection ebenezer rockwood hoar with his signature. Hoar served as Attorney General under President Grant, and he and his siblings were close friends of the Thoreau and Emerson families. Though neighbors in Concord, Judge Hoar likely did not meet Hawthorne until the two were elected to membership in the Saturday Club, the monthly meeting of eminent Boston-area citizens. "Those dinners were so pleasant that the Club ... often sat more than four hours at table, and there was then no late train to Concord. The Judge solved the difficulty pleasantly by having his man, or, quite often his son, bring his carryall and big black horse down to Waltham, to which a later train ran. Thus the three townsmen [Emerson, Hawthorne and Hoar], so different, yet so interesting to one another, had a pleasant drive on the cool country road, moon-lit or star-lit, after the hours at the gay banquet in Parker's hot room. But for this Hawthorne and the Judge would never have met ..." (Storey, Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar: A Memoir, 1911. p. 316). BAL 7600; Grolier 90.
