Identity:

Julian Hawthorne was a novelist. He was the second child of the author Nathaniel Hawthorne and his wife Sophia Amelia, née Peabody. He had two sisters Una and Rosebud. His older sister Una married a Lathrop. On 15 November 1870 he married May ('Minne') Albertina Amelung, the daughter of a wealthy family of American glassmakers of German descent.

Life:

Julian Hawthorne studied at Harvard and Dresden Universities but failed to obtain a degree. His first published work was a book of love poems written to Minne Amelung around 1869. He worked for a time with the Hydrographic Engineering Department of Docks of New York before turning to a career in writing. In 1870 he published his first story 'Love and Counter Love; or, Masquerading' in Harper's Weekly. Stories followed in Appletons' Journal, Scribner's Magazine, Lippincott's Monthly Magazine and the Aldine. His first novel, Bressant, was published in 1873. Further novels include Idolatry: A Romance (1874), Sebastian Strome (1879), The Professor's Sister (1888) and Love is a Spirit (1896). His books of tales include The Laughing Mill and other Stories (1879), Yellow-Cap (1880), David Poindexter's Disappearance and other Tales (1888) and Six-Cent Sam's (1893). In 1884 he wrote a biography of his father, Nathaniel Hawthorne and his Wife: A Biography, which was published in two volumes by Chatto and Windus.

Hawthorne was in London from 1874 to 1879 at which time he became friendly with JW at the Arts Club. Hawthorne described JW as 'charming' (#08089) and was among those who in the 1880s urged JW to visit America (#02055). On 2 November 1899 Hawthorne published a 'really delightful - beautifully done' article, according to JW (#08587), in the New York Independent, entitled 'A Champion of Art', on JW and The Baronet and the Butterfly (vol. 52, pp. 2956-60). JW described him to Rosalind Birnie Philip at this time as a man she would like: 'the man you remember who flattened out the German Officer, who had been rude to his wife, and broke his sword over him, and left him in the mud with the pieces!!' (#04759).

Bibliography:

Hawthorne, Edith Garrigues (ed.), The Memoirs of Julian Hawthorne, New York, 1938; Bassan, Maurice, Hawthorne's Son: The Life and Literary Career of Julian Hawthorne, Ohio State, 1970; Salmonson, Jessica Amanda, The Gothic Magician: The Life and Supernatural Tales of Julian Hawthorne, 1998; Salmonson, Jessica Amanda, Nathaniel Hawthorne's Son: Julian Hawthorne's Beginings and Beliefs, 1998, www.violetbooks.com/julianhawthorne.html (accessed 4 March 2004).