Twice-Told Tales - Critical Response

Critical Response

About a week after the publication of the book, Hawthorne sent a copy to his classmate from Bowdoin College, the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Longfellow had given a speech at their commencement calling for notable contributions to American literature. By this time, Longfellow was working at Harvard University and was becoming popular as a poet. Hawthorne wrote to him, "We were not, it is true, so well acquainted at college, that I can plead an absolute right to inflict my 'twice-told' tediousness upon you; but I have often regretted that we were not better known." In his 14-page critique in the April issue of the North American Review, Longfellow praised the book as a work of genius. "To this little book", Longfellow wrote, "we would say, 'Live ever, sweet, sweet book.' It comes from the hand of a man of genius." He noted that Hawthorne's writing "is characterized by a large proportion of feminine elements, depth and tenderness of feeling, exceeding purity of mind." He referred to the collection's "The Gentle Boy" as "on the whole, the finest thing he ever wrote". The two authors would eventually build a strong friendship.

Generally, reviews were positive. Park Benjamin, Sr. said that the author was "a rose baptized in dew". For the Boston Quarterly Review, Orestes Brownson noted Hawthorne's writings as "a pure and living stream of manly thought and feeling, which characterizes always the true man, the Christian, the republican and the patriot." After reading Twice-Told Tales, Herman Melville wrote to Evert Augustus Duyckinck that the stories weren't meaty enough. "Their deeper meanings are worthy of a Brahmin. Still there is something lacking—a good deal lacking to the plump sphericity of the man. What is that?—He does'nt patronise the butcher—he needs roast-beef, done rare."

Edgar Allan Poe wrote a well-known two-part review of Twice-Told Tales, published in the April and May 1842 issues of the Broadway Journal. Poe criticized Hawthorne's reliance on allegory and the didactic, something he called a "heresy" to American literature. He did, however, express praise at the use of short stories (Poe was a tale-writer himself) and said they "rivet the attention" of the reader. Poe admitted, "The style of Hawthorne is purity itself. His tone is singularly effective--wild, plaintive, thoughtful, and in full accordance with his themes." He concluded that, "we look upon him as one of the few men of indisputable genius to whom our country has as yet given birth."

The Grolier Club later named Twice-Told Tales the most influential book of 1837.