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Four Great American Classics

Page 81

by Herman Melville


  FOOTNOTES

  1 In Mosses from an Old Manse (1846) Hawthorne had included an introductory essay and an autobiographical sketch.

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  2 Memoirs of P. P., Clerk of this Parish, by Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift, and their friends, was a mock autobiography satirizing Gilbert Burnet’s dull History of His Own Times (1723).

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  3 Old King Derby was Elias Hasket Derby (1739–1799), a shipowner famous during the Revolution for privateering ventures and responsible for opening trade with the Orient.

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  4 America’s naval war with Britain, 1812–1814.

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  5 See his gospel, Matthew, ix, 9, describing his situation when Jesus summoned him as a disciple.

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  6 London slum on the Thames River.

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  7 A radical group of Democrats had used friction matches to continue a meeting interrupted by loss of lamplight. The name originally used by conservative Democrats was adopted by the Whigs to disparage all members of the opposition party.

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  8 Poorhouse.

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  9 An English immigrant to Massachusetts in 1630, William Hathorne was a major in the Salem militia and speaker in the House of Delegates.

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  10 John Hathorne, one of three judges in the Salem witch trials, 1692.

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  11 General James F. Miller, for many years chief of the Salem Custom House, had been a war hero in 1812 and then first territorial governor of Arkansas.

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  12 Conservative political party. Hawthorne was a Democrat.

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  13 Greek god of the North wind.

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  14 Well-born, aristocratic.

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  15 John Adams, President from 1797–1801.

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  16 General Miller.

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  17 Important 18th-century fort on Lake George in northeastern New York.

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  18 Crucial battles in 1814, during War of 1812.

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  19 Reportedly Miller’s answer to orders to take British battery at Lundy’s Lane in 1814.

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  20 Coat of arms.

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  21 Utopian community outside Boston, founded in 1841.

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  22 Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), New England’s foremost philosopher and man of letters.

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  23 Stream that runs into the Concord River.

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  24 William Ellery Channing (1818–1901), friend of Emerson, important figure in the liberal religious and social movements of the time.

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  25 Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862), nonconformist author of Walden (1854), was a naturalist and essayist, advocating individualism and a return to a simple life.

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  26 George Stillman Hilliard (1808–1879), Hawthorne’s close friend and adviser, was a Boston lawyer and literary man.

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  27 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882), America’s most famous poet. Hawthorne knew him at Bowdoin College and later became his friend.

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  28 Bronson Alcott (1799–1888), most radical member of the Concord group, was the father of Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women.

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  29 Geoffrey Chaucer, great Medieval English poet was Controller of Customs from 1374 to 1386; Robert Burns, after his first poetic successes, was an excise officer from 1789 to 1791.

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  30 A red dye from Central America.

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  31 William Gray (1750–1825), a Lieutenant-Governor of Massachusetts; Captain Simon Forrester (1776–1851), shipowner, believed at the time to be the richest citizen in Salem.

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  32 The capital of Nova Scotia, British headquarters in Revolution.

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  33 Period of Oliver Cromwell’s parliamentary rule in Britain, 1653–1659.

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  34 The Merchant’s Exchange in Boston.

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  35 William Shirley. Governor of Massachusetts, 1741–1749, 1753–1756.

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  36 Jonathan Pue’s death, March 24, 1760, is recorded in Joseph B. Felt’s Annals of Salem from Its First Settlement (1827).

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  37 The article, along with others, was dropped from the volume. It later appeared in Aesthetic Papers (1849) and The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales (1852).

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  38 These fictitious documents were, of course, never received by the Society.

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  39 The California Gold Rush in 1849 took place one year before publication of The Scarlet Letter.

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  40 Zachary Taylor, a Whig, was elected President in 1848.

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  41 In Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (1819–1820).

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  *1 At the time of writing this article, the author intended to publish, along with The Scarlet Letter, several shorter tales and sketches. These it has been thought advisable to defer.

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  42 In Twice-Told Tales (1837), Hawthorne’s monologue, “A Rill from the Town Pump,” surveyed one day in Salem life seen from the town’s center.

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  1 Isaac Johnson, one of Boston’s first settlers, died shortly after arrival in 1630. The prison, cemetery, and church were built on land he provided.

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  2 Thorn apple.

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  3 Anne Hutchinson (1591–1643) was banished to Rhode Island for preaching Antinomianism, the doctrine that man’s soul could not be saved through his good deeds but required God’s grace.

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  1 Queen Elizabeth I of England (1558–1603). Hawthorne is unclear as to the precise time of his action, but the date of Governor Winthrop’s death, referred to in the novel, was March 26, 1649, and scholars have fixed the scope of the novel as 1642–1649.

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  2 Familiar acquaintance, restricted to women.

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  3 Immoral woman.

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  4 Imaginative.

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  5 Decorated, as with letters in old manuscripts.

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  6 Town-crier.

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  1 A mild oath, indicating surprise or indignation.

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  2 The prophet Daniel had interpreted the writing that appeared on the wall during Belshazzar’s Feast, Daniel, v.

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  3 Richard Bellingham was Governor of the Massachusetts Colony in 1641, 1654, 1665–1672.

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  4 Combined ax and spear point mounted on a long pole.

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  5 Arriving with the first settlers in 1630, John Wilson (c. 1591–1667) became a leading Puritan minister.

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  1 Lashes of a whip.

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  2 Form of Medieval chemistry connected with magic and the black arts whose object was to transform base metals into gold.

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  3 Lethe was the River of Forgetfulness in Greek mythology. Nepenthe, an Egyptian drug (perhaps opium), was used to dispel sorrow through forgetfulness.

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  4 Swiss alchemist (1493–1541).

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  5 An illegitimate lover or sweetheart.

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  6 Know.

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  7 Devil’s messenger or the devil himself.

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  1 Pleated collars.

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  1 Clothing.

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  2 Proverbs, xiii, 24: “He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.”

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  3 Pranks.

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  4 Martin Luther (1483–1546), leader of the Protestant Reformation in Germany.

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  1 After his term as governor in 1642, Bellingham served as magistrate or deputy governor until reelection in 1654. See note 3, Chapter 3: THE RECOGNITION.

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  2 Indentured servant who paid through labor for passage to America.

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  3 Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1577) was a popular historical compilation used by Shakespeare as a source.

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  4 War against the now extinct Algonquian Massachusetts Indians took place in 1636–1637.

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  5 Authorities on English Common Law: Francis Bacon (1561–1626); Sir Edward Coke (1552–1634); William Noye (1577–1634); Sir John Finch (1584–1660).

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  6 Rev. Mr. Blackstone (1595–1675), first white settler in the Boston area, joined the Indians in 1634, after the arrival of the Puritans, whom he disliked.

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  1 James I, first of the Stuart monarchs in Britain, ruled from 1603 to 1625.

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  2 John the Baptist’s head was presented on a charger (platter) to Salome by Herod. See Mark, vi, 6–28.

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  3 Master of ceremonies at Medieval Christmas celebrations in England.

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  4 England. The Puritans had objected to stained glass and ornaments in churches and cathedrals as being relics of Roman Catholicism.

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  5 Both “scarlet woman” and “Babylonian” are abusive terms meaning a disreputable woman.

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  6 The popular late 17th-century schoolbook, The New England Primer, taught the alphabet by means of Biblical examples and illustrations. The Westminster Cathechism, adopted in 1648 at Edinburgh, was a Puritan question and answer method for teaching religion.

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  7 Parish officers responsible for maintaining order.

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  1 Sir Kenelm Digby (1603–1665), held political and diplomatic posts, wrote, and experimented with science and black magic.

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  2 The Heavenly City of redeemed souls. See Revelation, xxi, 2.

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  3 Parisian family, the Gobelins, had woven tapestries that had come to be regarded as heirlooms.

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  4 The prophet Nathan denounced David’s adultery with Bathsheba. See II Samuel, xi and xii.

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  5 Sir Thomas Overbury (1581–1613), English essayist, was poisoned for his part in a notorious romance between his patron, Viscount Rochester, and the Countess of Essex. At the subsequent murder trial of 1615, the correspondence of Dr. Simon Forman (1552–1611), astrologer and alchemist, exposed his part in the scandal.

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  1 In John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (1678–1684), the hero must pass through the flaming gates of Hell to cross the Valley of the Shadow of Death on his way to the Celestial City.

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  2 Judgment Day.

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  3 Truly.

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  4 Printed in Gothic or Old English type.

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  1 According to Acts of the Apostles, ii, 1–11, Jesus’s apostles were able to communicate with each listener in his own tongue through “the gift” or Holy Spirit.

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  2 Enoch “walked with God” and was taken into Heaven without dying. See Genesis, v, 21–22, Hebrews, xi, 5.

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  3 Whip, used for punishing oneself.

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  1 Governor John Winthrop (1588–1649), a founder and first Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony (1630).

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  2 Calvinist minister’s black cloak.

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  1 Poisons produced by all three were believed magical and were used in witchcraft practices.

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  2 Horseshoe crab.

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  3 Starfish.

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  4 Tablet, bearing the alphabet and sometimes a prayer, used to teach spelling.

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  1 John Eliot (1604–1690), first missionary to the Indians who used their language, called “Apostle to the Indians.”

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  2 Tubercular condition of lymph glands; though common in children, not hereditary.

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  1 Capricious, whimsical.

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  2 Ancient.

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  1 Delivered on the governor’s inauguration day and at the opening of legislature.

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  1 Procession held on November 9 to celebrate the annual inauguration of the Lord Mayor of London.

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  1 The Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts is compared with 12th-century crusaders, chivalric groups of the 13th and 15th centuries.

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  2 High-crested Spanish helmets.

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  3 Governors of New England colonies: Simon Bradstreet (1603–1697); John Endicott (1588–1665); Thomas Dudley (1576–1653).

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  4 Increase Mather (1639–1723), the most powerful Puritan leader, was President of Harvard (1685–1701), participated in the Salem witchcraft trials.

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  5 Ornamental garment worn about the chest, under laces of a bodice.

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  6 Phosphorous.

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  1 The color red in heraldry.

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  FOUR GREAT AMERICAN CLASSICS

  A Bantam Book

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Bantam Classic edition published February 1986

  Bantam reissue / June 2008

  Published by

  Bantam Dell

  A Division of Random House, Inc.

  New York, New York

  All rights reserved

  The text of Billy Budd, Sailor is that of the standard authoritative text edited by Harrison Hayford and Merton M. Seatts, Jr., and is reprinted by permission of the University of Chicago Press © 1962 by the University of Chicago.

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  Bantam Books and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

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  www.bantamdell.com

  eISBN: 978-0-553-90510-6

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