Hawthorne, Grace Greenwood, and the Culture of Pedagogy

[...]if the growth of literatures for children in antebellum America can be linked to an adult desire to foster the development of middle-class interiority in children, it is worth noting that one of Greenwood's stories had so moved four and-a-half year old Julian that he could not bear to "hear [it] again": "he sobbed as if his heart were breaking" (16: 389). According to Michael Winship's careful study of the firm, by 1859 Greenwood was the fourth most popular American author published by Ticknor and Fields; Hawthorne was the third (56).5 While Greenwood was initially known for light essays, poetry, and fiction, her most popular publication of the 1850s was History of My Pets; that book's success led to a string of children's books published by the firm, a travelogue, a second series of her first book (a compilation titled Greenwood Leaves), and a longrunning children's periodical, The Little Pilgrim, which prominently featured the legend "Edited by Grace Greenwood" splashed boldly across the masthead. [...]in a reference to his father's journal log, "Twenty Days with Julian and Little Bunny/ By Papa" (8:436-486), Julian recalls the death of his pet rabbit at Lenox in terms that reaffirm romantic childhood innocence: "children __ do not believe that death can be other than a transient phenomenon; the lifeless body may puzzle, but it does not convince them" Hawthorne and His Circle 35). [...]Edition.