Julian Hawthorne -- son of Nathaniel Hawthorne -- was not only a talented writer in his own right, but a writer who spent his entire life proving himself, over and over again. What writer born into Nathaniel Hawthorne's shadow could do otherwise? Julian not only succeeded in stepping out of his father's shadow, he succeeded magnificently. The book you hold in your hands -- The Golden Fleece, one of his finest -- shows his triumph well. Notice how fresh, how modern, the text feels, despite it age. Notice the Golden Fleece itself. "Here's an odd-looking thing. What do you call that?" "We call it the Golden Fleece." "The Golden Fleece! I can imagine a Medea; but where is the Dragon?" "If Jason came, the Dragon might appear." "I remember reading somewhere that the Dragon was less to be feared than Medea's eyes. But this fleece seems to have lost most of its gold. There is only a little gold embroidery." "It shows where the gold is hidden." (Jacketless library hardcover.)

Author Biography

Julian Hawthorne (1846 - 1934) was an American writer and journalist, the son of novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne and Sophia Peabody. He wrote numerous poems, novels, short stories, mystery/detective fiction, essays, travel books, biographies and histories. As a journalist, he reported on the Indian Famine for Cosmopolitan magazine and the Spanish-American War for the New York Journal. Hawthorne wrote two books about his parents, called Nathaniel Hawthorne and His Wife (1884-85) and Hawthorne and His Circle (1903). In the latter, he responded to a remark from his father's friend Herman Melville that the famous author had a "secret." Julian dismissed this, claiming Melville was inclined to think so only because "there were many secrets untold in his own career," causing much speculation. The younger Hawthorne also wrote a critique of his father's novel The Scarlet Letter that was published in The Atlantic Monthly in April 1886.