By 1845, the careers of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe were on very different tracks. Hawthorne was a struggling writer living in Concord, Massachusetts, while Poe was in New York City, a celebrated writer and literary critic known around the country. Yet, in the 1840s, the two men’s careers became briefly entwined. 

Poe and Hawthorne never met but were familiar with each other’s work. Living at The Old Manse, Hawthorne had only one book to his credit – a collection of previously published stories called Twice-Told Tales. It garnered him some success when it was published in 1837, but when a second volume was released in 1842 it caught the eye of Edgar A. Poe.  

Edgar Allen Poe in 1849

| Public domain

By 1842, Poe had produced some of his best-known works, including “The Fall of the House of Usher” (1839), “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” (1841), and “The Masque of the Red Death” (1842). He was also highly regarded as an influential literary critic; his reviews of books and poetry could make or break a career. 

Poe wrote a glowing two-part review of Twice-Told Tales for the April and May 1842 issues of Graham’s Magazine. He praised Hawthorne’s originality as “remarkable,” and said the stories in the book “rivet the attention.” Furthermore, “The style of Hawthorne is purity itself. His tone is…wild, plaintive, thoughtful, and in full accordance with his themes…We look upon him as one of the few men of indisputable genius to whom our country has as yet given birth.” 

Nathaniel Hawthorne circa 1850

| Hawthorne print by T. Phillibrown. ©Media Storehouse.

In June 1846, Hawthorne’s second book of short stories, Mosses From an Old Manse, would be published. Less than two weeks after its release, he would write to Poe to inquire if the critic had received a copy of the book to review. And he took the opportunity to tell Poe how much he liked his work:

“My Dear Sir, — I presume the publishers will have sent you a copy of ‘Mosses from an Old Manse’ the latest…collection of my tales and sketches. I have read your occasional notices of my productions with great interest — not so much because your judgment was, upon the whole, favorable, as because it seemed to be given in earnest. I care for nothing but the truth; and shall always much more readily accept a harsh truth, in regard to my writings, than a sugared falsehood. I confess, however, that I admire you rather as a writer of tales than as a critic upon them, I might often…dissent from your opinions…but could never fail to recognize your force and originality in the former.”

It’s a good thing that Hawthorne preferred “harsh truth” over “sugared falsehood.” Poe responded with a lengthy review of Mosses in the November 1847 edition of Godey’s Lady’s Book, and the effusive praise he’d given Twice Told-Tales had vanished! He called the stories in Mosses “unoriginal” and found Hawthorne’s writing “peculiar.” Furthermore, the stories were “monotonous;” they would “deprive [Hawthorne] of all chance of popular appreciation.”

Poe then took Hawthorne to task for associating with the New England literati and, in particular, Concord Transcendentalists. He wrote that Hawthorne had “imbibed” too often from the “phalanx atmosphere” (a reference to Hawthorne’s time at Brook Farm), and while he had “the purest style, the finest taste, the most available scholarship, the most delicate humor, the most touching pathos, the most radiant imagination, the most consummate ingenuity” he needed to “come out from The Old Manse, cut Mr. Alcott [and] hang (if possible) the editor of The Dial…” if he wanted to achieve true literary success. 

The Old Manse

| Library of Congress.

Poe had a long, simmering feud with the Transcendentalists. He considered Concord itself a “nest of overvalued mediocrities” and disliked the “sophists and pretenders” among them. He thought Emerson to be a pale imitation of Thomas Carlyle, a man “with whom we have no patience whatever – the mystic for mysticism’s sake.” 

In return, Emerson wasn’t impressed with Poe. He called him “the jingle man” and found Poe’s writings to be “almost without the first sign of moral principle…or the simpler affections of the heart.” 

Hawthorne’s reaction to Poe’s scathing review is unknown. He probably didn’t respond; by 1845 he was more concerned about earning a living than reading reviews. Writing was not paying the bills and he needed to find a job that would. The problem was exacerbated by the fact that a full-time position “would inevitably remove” the Hawthornes “from our present happy home” – a real job would mean leaving Concord.  

A lifelong Democrat, Hawthorne turned to the political world for a job and was soon offered a position at the Custom House in his home town of Salem, Massachusetts. The appointment was approved by President Polk, and Hawthorne was sworn in on April 9, 1846, as surveyor for the Port of Salem, a position that earned him an annual salary of $1,200.

Poe was also having a hard time making ends meet. He’d left Graham’s Magazine in 1842, and while his stories like “The Gold Bug” and poems like “The Raven” were hugely popular, popularity didn’t necessarily translate into money. He, too, was looking for a government position, possibly at the Customs House in Philadelphia. He even went so far as to go to Washington to try and meet President Tyler, but for whatever reason (the story is hazy), either they never met, or Poe was drunk when they did meet. Regardless, Poe did not get a position. 

In 1849, Hawthorne lost his Salem job when the Whig candidate Zachary Taylor became president, and the Democrats lost power. Hawthorne was stoic, writing, “There is no use in lamentation. It now remains to consider what I shall do next.” What he would do next is pick up his pen and turn his experience into a short sketch called “The Custom-House.” It would be published the following year as the introduction to his masterpiece, The Scarlet Letter. Other successes followed; by the time of his death in 1864 Nathaniel Hawthorne was one of the most famous writers in America, his fame secure. 

Poe continued to write poetry and short stories for various periodicals. His wife died from tuberculosis in 1847 and he never recovered emotionally. He himself was in poor health throughout 1849, and in October he was found in Baltimore at a local tavern, disheveled and incoherent. He died on October 7, 1849. There are many theories about his last days; ironically, the man credited with creating murder mysteries left this world surrounded in mystery.  

Like Hawthorne, Poe’s reputation lives on. The two men are today the leading examples of what literary critics call the “Dark Romantics.” They wouldn’t mind that; either one would probably use it as a title for a short story.