Reading Originally: The Story Teller, “Mr. Higginbotham's Catastrophe,” and “Passages from a Relinquished Work”

This essay makes the case for publishing “Mr. Higginbotham's Catastrophe” as it originally appeared, framed by the first and only two extant narratives from The Story Teller, Hawthorne's third unsuccessful collection of stories and sketches. “The Story Teller, No. I” and “The Story Teller, No. II” appeared in the November and December issues of the New-England Magazine, as the first installments in the magazine's agreement to publish the entire collection serially. That agreement was then abrogated, and no more narratives appeared within the frames that Hawthorne apparently intended. This introduction is followed by transcriptions of the two “Story Teller” publications.