Larry J. Reynolds - Devils and Rebels: The Making of Hawthornes Damned Politics

It is a pleasure to acknowledge those who have helped with the writing of this book. I am grateful to my colleagues at Texas A&M University, particularly my friends Marian Eide, Richard Golsan, Howard Marchitello, Pamela Matthews, David McWhirter, and Mary Ann O'Farrell, who have been consistently supportive of this project. I want to extend special thanks to my former department head Paul Parrish, for creating such a congenial environment in which to teach and write. I am also grateful to Texas A&M University for awarding me a faculty development leave during the fall of 2005 to work on this book.

I have received excellent aid from a series of graduate research assistants: Kate Bedard, David Cockley, Amy Larsen, and Sun-jin Lee. I thank them for their efforts. James Rosenheim, the director of the Melbern G. Glasscock Center for Humanities Research at Texas A&M University, was kind enough to invite me to present an initial draft of this study at a meeting of the center's fellows, whose responses helped me clarify my argument. I am particularly indebted to Al Broussard, April Hatfield, Larry Oliver, Sally Robinson, Robert Shandley, Susan Stabille, and Victoria Rosner for their questions and suggestions.

My research for this book was inspired by the work and the words of a number of eminent Americanists. I wish to acknowledge my particular indebtedness to Nina Baym, Millicent Bell, Sacvan Bercovitch, Lawrence Buell, Bell Chevigny, Samuel Coale, Phyllis Cole, Monika Elbert, Teresa Goddu, Len Gougeon, Gordon Hutner, Buford Jones, Robert Levine, Deshae Lott, Richard Millington, Joel Myerson, Frederick Newberry, Leland Person, Sandra Petrulionis, Joel Pfister, Jeffrey Steele, and Susan Williams.

I owe a special debt to two friends and Hawthorne specialists, Brenda Wineapple and Thomas Mitchell, who read early portions of this study. I thank them for their expert commentary. I'm also grateful to the anonymous readers for the University of Michigan Press for their detailed responses. The fine editors Jana Argersinger and Albert J. von Frank helped me improve a portion of this study, published as the article The Challenge of Cultural Relativity: The Case of Hawthorne, ESQ: A Journal of the American Renaissance 49 (2003): 12947. Another portion appeared as the essay Strangely Ajar with the Human Race: Hawthorne, Slavery, and the Question of Moral Responsibility, in Hawthorne and the Real: Bicentennial Essays, ed. Millicent Bell (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2005), 4069. I am grateful to the anonymous readers of that volume for their commentary.

For generously sharing with me useful information and documents over the years, I wish to thank Amy Earhart, Robert Gross, Julie Hall, Jan Little, Melinda Ponder, and Magnus Ulln. Three of my colleagues have been generous enough to read the entire book in manuscript and to suggest needed revisions: I'm deeply grateful to my current department head, Jimmie Killingsworth, for his timely and helpful reading; to my good friend Dennis Berthold, for his expert reading and helpful responses, given week after week following our racquetball games; and to my wife, Susan Egenolf, for her insightful reading, penetrating questions, and warm support. To Susan and our children, Charlotte and Logan, I also extend heartfelt gratitude for their joy, love, and patience.