THE DEEP ONES: "The Devil in Manuscript" by Nathaniel Hawthorne

"The Devil in Manuscript" by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Discussion begins July 6, 2022.

First published (as by Ashley A. Royce) in in the November 1835 issue of New England Magazine.



BIBLIOGRAPHY

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?83712

SELECTED PRINT VERSIONS

The Complete Novels and Selected Tales of Nathaniel Hawthorne
Don't Open This Book!
Tales and Sketches

ONLINE VERSIONS

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/513/513-h/513-h.htm#chap10

ONLINE AUDIO VERSIONS

https://ia802807.us.archive.org/28/items/short_ghost_and_horror_collection_025_1...

MISCELLANY

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathaniel_Hawthorne
http://www.yankeeclassic.com/miskatonic/library/stacks/literature/lovecraft/essa...
https://www.history.com/news/10-things-you-may-not-know-about-nathaniel-hawthorn...
https://anilbalan.com/2013/07/28/nathaniel-hawthornes-ghost/
https://tinyurl.com/2h8vtx29

I enjoyed this early devil tale that additionally boasts a pile of apparently cursed manuscripts. The joke, of course, is that the rather egomaniacal author gets revenge on his critics by quite literally setting the town on fire with his work. It almost seems, however, that by producing such wild, witchcraft-influenced tales, he truly is giving "that dark idea a sort of material existence". By subsequently burning them, he is actively using dark magic to cast a malicious spell, inadvertently or not.

What was meant by "I arrived by mail in a large town"? Was Hawthorne sneakily making the devil the narrator? That seems to fit and yet it doesn't.

>2 gwendetenebre:

Mail coach?

>3 housefulofpaper:
Yes - meant to add that. Mail carriage or coach. Guess he hitched a ride.

I really enjoyed the vivid, sometimes even lurid, prose in this one.

I too wondered at arriving by mail. Thanks for the explanation.

A rather funny little piece, I thought. Black magic of an entirely naturalistic kind.

I feel like I should enjoy Hawthorne more than I actually do. He is a better wordsmith than Lovecraft (to compare to another local who grappled with some of the same issues), but Old Grandpa ruined me at an early age by linking his cosmic horror to the settings in Massachusetts I knew in my youth.
After re-reading Young Goodman Brown and The Minister's Black Veil for context I think the issue with me is that Hawthorne's take on horror is a personal one, guiltily rooted in his own Puritan past.

In this story, the devil is more abstract than the one in Goodman Brown's encounter, despite being "...represented in our traditions and the written record of witchcraft". Still the problem seems to be triggered by the market force of the publishing houses at the time, and the lack of demand for what his muse could produce. The banality of evil indeed.

While there is a palpable horror at the frustrated writer's glee at the end of setting the town ablaze with the embers of the holocaust he made of his work, I don't have Henry James' appreciation of the "deeper psychology".

There is a lot I admire about Hawthorne as a person, as did Emerson who thought a bit less of his writing. This story motivated me to take another crack at the House of the Seven Gables. I think I need to reconcile his literary merit with the disappointment I always seem to be left with after reading about his character's futile struggles with their personal demons. For me, Hawthorne was in a unique position to explain what made New England such a devil-haunted place, maybe I just can't accept that the truth isn't as cosmic as I'd prefer it to be.

I liked this one as much for its look at the psychology of writing and writers and its perspective on early American publishing as much as its satanic elements.

>7 papijoe:

I've started The House of Seven Gables several times since I was very young but I've never finished it. Every time I read one of Hawthorne's short stories, though, I feel like giving the novel one more shot, so I can understand your motivation! The paperback I've had for 50 years or so is up in the attic. I've always loved its mega-gothic cover:

>9 gwendetenebre:
That cover is a keeper!

Hmm. The Wikipedia article for mail coach ("a stagecoach built to a General Post Office-approved design operated by an independent contractor to carry long-distance mail for the Post Office. Mail was held in a box at the rear where the only Royal Mail employee, an armed guard, stood. Passengers were taken at a premium fare.") only refers to them operating in Britain, Ireland, and Australia. Did the States have an equivalent service known by the same name, or should we assume the setting of the story is somewhere in the UK, despite the tale's New England Puritan psychology?

I don't have a deep feeling for the theological and historical underpinnings of that psychology of course (I grew up in England, and my religious upbringing, such as it is, was limited to some weak-tea Methodism and tiresome school assemblies). But still, I can perceive the tensions in "Oberon" (the King of the Fairies, of course. Relevant as - non-Christian, hence devilish?): the Puritan attitude to Art, or the Arts, (i.e. "idolatry" - my recent reading has touched on the Thirty Years War which involved plenty of Calvinist-inspired iconoclasm) and personal ambition; his "doing the right thing" out of disappointment at his lack of success perhaps as much as a wish to step back onto the right path (and get back a feeling of community? "a solitude in the midst of men"); then that 180 degree turn when he realises his destroyed manuscripts are having a tangible (and malign) impact by burning down the town.