Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Biographical Stories | - | Nathaniel Hawthorne | Buy |
| 2 | The New Adam and Eve | - | Nathaniel Hawthorne | Buy |
| 3 | Twenty Days with Julian and Little Bunny by Papa | - | Nathaniel Hawthorne | Buy |
| 4 | Life of Franklin Pierce | - | Nathaniel Hawthorne | Buy |
| 5 | Passages from the English notebooks of Nathaniel Hawthorne | - | Nathaniel Hawthorne | Buy |
| 6 | The American Notebooks | 1932 | Nathaniel Hawthorne | Buy |
| 7 | Love Letters Of Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1839 1863 | 1972 | Nathaniel Hawthorne | Buy |
| 8 | Letters of Hawthorne to William D. Ticknor, 1851-1864 | 1972 | Nathaniel Hawthorne | Buy |
| 9 | Hawthorne’s Lost Notebook | 1978 | Nathaniel Hawthorne | Buy |
| 10 | Hawthorne’s American Travel Sketches | 1990 | Nathaniel Hawthorne | Buy |
| 11 | The French and Italian Note-Books | 2013 | Nathaniel Hawthorne | Buy |
| 12 | True Stories from New England History, 1620-1803 | 2016 | Nathaniel Hawthorne | Buy |
| 13 | Hawthorne’s First Diary | 2018 | Nathaniel Hawthorne | Buy |
| 14 | Chiefly About War Matters | 2019 | Nathaniel Hawthorne | Buy |
| 15 | True Stories from History and Biography | 2019 | Nathaniel Hawthorne | Buy |
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s non-fiction includes his American Notebooks, French and Italian Note-Books, and extensive correspondence. These writings document his years abroad as American consul in Liverpool and his travels in Italy. He also wrote Life of Franklin Pierce, a campaign biography for his college friend, and Biographical Stories for children.
The notebooks are particularly valued by scholars because they reveal how Hawthorne observed the world and gathered material for his fiction. Many scenes and characters from his novels first appeared as notebook entries. Twenty Days with Julian and Little Bunny by Papa is a charming record of time spent with his young son, showing a domestic side rarely seen in his published fiction.
His correspondence includes love letters to his wife Sophia (published as Love Letters Of Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1839-1863) and business letters to his publisher William D. Ticknor. Chiefly About War Matters (2019 reprint) is an essay about the Civil War that was controversial when first published in 1862. These non-fiction works give a fuller picture of Hawthorne than his novels alone can provide.