America is now wholly given over to a d--d mob of scribbling women, and I should have no chance of success while the public taste is occupied with their trash - and should be ashamed of myself if I did succeed. What is the mystery of these innumerable editions of the Lamplighter, and other books neither better nor worse? - worse they could not be, and better they need not be, when they sell by 100,000.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Hawthorne criticizes the popularity of female authors and dismisses their work as inferior.
- In plain terms
- He dislikes how much people read books by women.
- What can you take from it?
- Success depends on public taste, which he finds degraded by women's writing.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- How does market demand influence artistic value?
- What role does gender play in literary reception?
Another view
His view reflects personal bias rather than objective literary quality.
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