Twenty Days with Julian and Little Bunny by Papa (New York Review Books)

In July of 1851, Nathaniel Hawthorne's wife and daughters took a trip to visit relatives. How Hawthorne and his five-year-old son Julian managed in...more

In July of 1851, Nathaniel Hawthorne's wife and daughters took a trip to visit relatives. How Hawthorne and his five-year-old son Julian managed in their absence is the subject of this tender and funny excerpt from Hawthorne's notebooks. Each day is spent swimming, skipping stones, picking berries, and subduing armies of thistles. There are lots of questions ("He has baited me with more questions, references, and observations, than mortal father ought to be expected to endure"), crises concerning a pet bunny, and only one moment of grown-up companionship - when Mr. Herman Melville stops by to discuss eternity over cigars. This true-life story by a great American writer emerges from obscurity to shine a delightful light upon family life - then and now. An introduction by noted novelist Paul Auster adds to this intimate portrait.   less