Imaginative Collaboration: James, Hawthorne, Blithedale , and The Bostonians

In light of the burgeoning sub-field of collaboration studies, this essay considers unconventional collaborations such as those between living and dead writers. While James frequently evokes Nathaniel Hawthorne, none of his works more directly engages with his precursor than The Bostonians (1886), which reworks the themes and plot of The Blithedale Romance (1852). By reading The Bostonians as an act of imaginative collaboration , we develop a richer understanding of this novel’s achievement, its exploration of gender and sexual politics, on the one hand, and its critique of nineteenth-century reform, on the other hand, which has powerful implications for the former.