My Kinsman, Major Molineux - Nathaniel Hawthorne - 1832
Introduction
"My Kinsman, Major Molineux" (1832) is an early short story about American independence—that of an individual as much as of a country—from Nathaniel Hawthorne, a pioneer of the distinctly American voice in literature. Originally published anonymously, as were a number of Hawthorne's early stories and sketches, "My Kinsman, Major Molineux" first appeared in an annual gift book, The Token, in 1832 with a few of Hawthorne's other stories. The story was not published again until it was reprinted in Hawthorne's collection of stories The Snow-Image, and Other Twice-Told Tales (1851). It also marked the first time "My Kinsman, Major Molineux" was published under his name. Though not considered a major work by Hawthorne during the nineteenth century, it began attracting a great deal of scholarly attention by the mid-twentieth century.
In "My Kinsman, Major Molineux," Hawthorne describes the frustrating journey of young Robin Molineux, a country teen who has come to a Massachusetts city to find the title character. The kinsman is his father's cousin, an officer in the British Army and the gentleman of civil rank in the community. The major, a wealthy man with no heirs, had visited Robin's family a year or two earlier and hinted that he would help establish one of his cousin's two sons in the world.
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