Or,
The existence of this story, posthumously published, was not known to anyone but Hawthorne himself, until some time after his death, when themanuscript was found among his papers. The preparation and copying of hisNote-Books for the press occupied the most of Mrs. Hawthorne's availabletime during the interval from 1864 to 1870; but in the latter year, havingdecided to publish the unfinished romance, she began the task of puttingtogether its loose sheets and deciphering the handwriting, which, towardsthe close of Hawthorne's life, had grown somewhat obscure and uncertain.Her death occurred while she was thus engaged, and the transcription wascompleted by her daughters. The book was then issued simultaneously inAmerica and England, in 1871.
Although "Septimius Felton" appeared so much later than "The Marble Faun,"it was conceived and, in another form, begun before the Italian romancehad presented itself to the author's mind. The legend of a bloody footleaving its imprint where it passed, which figures so prominently in thefollowing fiction, was brought to Hawthorne's notice on a visit toSmithell's Hall, Lancashire, England. [Footnote: See EnglishNote-Books, April 7, and August 25, 1855.] Only five days afterhearing of it, he made a note in his journal, referring to "my Romance,"which had to do with a plot involving the affairs of a family establishedboth in England and New England; and it seems likely that he had alreadybegun to associate the bloody footstep with this project. What isextraordinary, and must be regarded as an unaccountable coincidence–oneof the strange premonitions of genius–is that in 1850, before he had everbeen to England and before he knew of the existence of Smithell's Hall, hehad jotted down in his Note-Book, written in America, this suggestion:"The print in blood of a naked foot to be traced through the street of atown." The idea of treating in fiction the attempt to renew youth or toattain an earthly immortality had engaged his fancy quite early in hiscareer, as we discover from "Doctor Heidegger's Experiment," in the"Twice-Told Tales." In 1840, also, we find in the journal: "If a man weresure of living forever, he would not care about his offspring." The"Mosses from an Old Manse" supply another link in this train ofreflection; for "The Virtuoso's Collection" includes some of the elixirvitae "in an antique sepulchral urn." The narrator there representshimself as refusing to quaff it. "'No; I desire not an earthlyimmortality,' said I. 'Were man to live longer on earth, the spiritualwould die out of him.... There is a celestial something within us thatrequires, after a certain time, the atmosphere of heaven to preserve itfrom ruin.'" On the other hand, just before hearing, for the first time,the legend of Smithell's Hall, he wrote in his English journal:–
"God himself cannot compensate us for being born for any period short ofeternity. All the misery endured here constitutes a claim for anotherlife, and still more all the happiness; because all true happinessinvolves something more than the earth owns, and needs something more thana mortal capacity for the enjoyment of it." It is sufficiently clear thathe had meditated on the main theme of "Septimius Felton," at intervals,for many years.
When, in August, 1855, Hawthorne went by invitation to Smithell's Hall, thelady of the manor, on his taking leave, asked him "to write a ghost-storyfor her house;" and he observes in his notes, "the legend is a good one."Three years afterwards, in 1858, on the eve of departure for France andItaly, he began to sketch the outline of a romance laid in En