Julian Hawthorne

Julian Hawthorne (June 22, 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.

Julian Hawthorne was born June 22, 1846, in Boston. His father announced to his sister:

   A small troglodyte made his appearance here at ten minutes to six o'clock, this morning, who claims to be your nephew, and the heir of all our wealth and honors. He has dark hair and is no great beauty at present, but is said to be a particularly fine little urchin by everybody who has seen him.

His parents had difficulty choosing a name for eight months. Possible names included George, Arthur, Edward, Horace, Robert, and Lemuel. His father referred to him for some time as "Bundlebreech".

Hawthorne entered Harvard in 1863, but did not graduate. He was tutored privately in German by James Russell Lowell, a professor/writer who encouraged Nathaniel Hawthorne's work. He studied civil engineering in America and Germany, was an engineer in the New York City Dock Department under General McClellan (1870–72), spent 10 years abroad, and on his return edited his father's unfinished Dr. Grimshawe's Secret (1883). While in Europe he wrote the novels: Bressant (1873); Idolatry (1874); Garth (1874); Archibald Malmaison (1879); and Sebastian Strome (1880). Hawthorne also wrote a critique of his father's novel The Scarlet Letter that was published in The Atlantic Monthly in April 1886. He wrote many novels after his return.

Julian Hawthorne published an article in the New York World's October 24, 1886, titled issue "Lowell in a Chatty Mood" based on a long interview with James Russell Lowell. Hawthorne reported that Lowell called the Prince of Wales "immensely fat" as well as other negative comments on British royals and politicians. Lowell angrily complained that the article made him seem like "a toothless old babbler".

In 1889 there were reports that Hawthorne was one of several writers who had, under the name of "Arthur Richmond," published in the North American Review devastating attacks on President Grover Cleveland and other leading Americans. Hawthorne denied the reports.

In 1908, Hawthorne’s old Harvard friend William J. Morton (son of pioneer anesthesiologist William T.G. Morton) invited Hawthorne to join in promoting some newly created mining companies in Ontario, Canada. Hawthorne made his writing and his family name central to the stock-selling campaigns. After complaints from shareholders, both Morton and Hawthorne were tried in New York City for mail fraud, and convicted in 1913. Hawthorne was able to sell some three and a half million shares of stock in a non-existent silver mine and served one year in the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary.

Upon his release from prison, he wrote The Subterranean Brotherhood (1914), a nonfiction work calling for an immediate end to incarceration of criminals. Hawthorne argued, based on his own experience, that incarceration was inhumane, and should be replaced by moral suasion. Of the fraud with which he was charged he always maintained his innocence.