In the winter of 1849, therefore,
he got to work on his first regular romance. In his Preface to the
"Mosses" he had formally renounced the short story; but "The Scarlet
Letter" proved so highly wrought a tragedy that he had fears of its
effect upon the public, if presented alone.
"In the present case I have some doubts about the expediency, [he wrote
to Mr. Fields, the junior partner of his new publisher, Ticknor,]
because, if the book is made up entirely of 'The Scarlet Letter,' it
will be too sombre. I found it impossible to relieve the shadows of the
story with so much light as I would gladly have thrown in. Keeping so
close to its point as the tale does, and diversified no otherwise than
by turning different sides of the same dark idea to the reader's eye, it
will weary very many people, and disgust some. Is it safe, then, to
stake the book entirely on this one chance?"
His plan was to add some of the pieces afterward printed with the "The
Snow Image," and entitle the whole "Old Time Legends, together with
Sketches Experimental and Ideal." But this was abandoned. On the 4th of
February, 1850, he writes to Bridge:--
"I finished my book only yesterday: one end being in the press at
Boston, while the other was in my head here at Salem; so that, as you
see, the story is at least fourteen miles long....
"My book, the publisher tells me, will not be out before April. He
speaks of it in tremendous terms of approbation; so does Mrs. Hawthorne,
to whom I read the conclusion last night.
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