Hawthorne, Nathaniel
Hawthorne, Nathaniel (1804–64),American man of letters, and author of two retellings of Greek legends for children, A Wonder‐Book for Girls and Boys (1852), and Tanglewood Tales for Girls and Boys (1853). The first set of stories is told against a background of the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts where Hawthorne was living at the time. Both books reflect an idealized American domesticity rather than the savagery of the original legends. Hawthorne removed the gods (except Mercury, disguised as ‘Quicksilver’), eliminated all evil and sexuality, and introduced child characters wherever he could, so that Proserpina and Pandora become children, and Midas is given a little daughter, Marygold, with whom he shares a lavish New England breakfast. The student narrator in The Wonder‐Book defends this treatment of the stories, saying that a modern Yankee had the same right as the ancient poets to remodel the myths....
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