| "Feathertop" | |
|---|---|
| by Nathaniel Hawthorne | |
 | |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Short story |
| Published in | The International Magazine |
| Publication date | 1852 |
"Feathertop" is a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne, first published in 1852. The moral tale uses a metaphoric scarecrow named Feathertop and its adventure to offer the reader a conclusive lesson about human character. It has since been used and adapted in several other media forms, such as opera and theatre.
In seventeenth century New England, the witch Mother Rigby builds a scarecrow to protect her garden. She is so taken with her own handiwork that she whimsically decides to bring the scarecrow to life and send it into town to woo Polly Gookin, the daughter of Judge Gookin, with whom Mother Rigby had unspecified prior dealings. Once the stuffed man does come alive, Mother Rigby gives him the appearance of a normal human being and provides a pipe, on which the scarecrow must puff to keep himself alive.
Judge Gookin meets the scarecrow, whom Mother Rigby has named Feathertop. Feathertop is introduced to Polly, and the two begin to fall in love. But when Polly and Feathertop gaze into a bewitched mirror, they see Feathertop reflected as a scarecrow, not as a man. Polly faints, and the now-terrified and anguished scarecrow rushes back to Mother Rigby, where, knowing himself for what he really is, he deliberately throws away his pipe and collapses in a lifeless heap. Mother Rigby reflects, "There are thousands upon thousands of coxcombs and charlatans in the world, made up of just such a jumble of wornout, forgotten, and good-for-nothing trash as he was! Yet they live in fair repute, and never see themselves for what they are," and decides that her "son" is better off as merely a scarecrow.
Hawthorne first offered the tale to John Sullivan Dwight, who had asked for a contribution to Sartain's Union Magazine in November 1851. He demanded $100 for it. [1] He admitted to John Sartain that the fee was a high one and noted, "I myself would not pay it, were I in the chair editorial". [2] Instead, "Feathertop: A Moralized Legend" was published in two parts in The International Magazine, edited by Rufus Wilmot Griswold, in February and March 1852. [3] It was the last new adult tale Hawthorne wrote. [2]
The story was later collected in 1854 as part of revised edition of Mosses from an Old Manse .
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"Feathertop" was adapted twice as a silent film, in 1912 [4] and in 1916. [5] It was adapted for television twice as well. The first television version, adapted by Maurice Valency, [6] Professor of Comparative Literature at Columbia University, was presented in 1955 as part of the General Electric Theater , with a cast that included Natalie Wood, Carleton Carpenter, Dick Elliott, and Emory Parnell. [7] The second television version was presented in 1961 by ABC-TV as a musical special, starring Hugh O'Brian and Jane Powell, with Cathleen Nesbitt and Hans Conried. The music was written by Mary Rodgers and the lyrics by Martin Charnin. [8]
The story, much embellished, was first dramatized in 1908 as The Scarecrow , a full-length, four-act romantic melodrama by American poet-playwright Percy MacKaye. Most of the characters were renamed, and Mother Rigby (renamed Goody Rickby) was given a definite reason to hate the Judge, Polly (now known as Rachel) was given a fiancé who is constantly jealous of the Scarecrow, and the story was given a more poignant and sentimental ending. The Devil does not appear in "Feathertop", but he is one of the major characters in The Scarecrow.
The play was adapted as a silent film in 1923 under the title Puritan Passions . [9] The play was also presented on television in 1972, with a cast headed by Gene Wilder and Blythe Danner, and featuring Pete Duel, Norman Lloyd, Will Geer and Nina Foch in support. [10]
MacKaye's play has also been adapted twice as an opera, also called The Scarecrow, once in 1945 by Normand and Dorothy Lockwood, and more recently with music by Joseph Turrin and libretto by Bernard Stambler.
"Feathertop" also inspired the 1967 Columbia University Varsity Show of the same name, the last such production before the annual revue entered an 11-year interregnum.
Warner Bros. Family Entertainment released a direct-to-video musical titled The Scarecrow on August 26, 2000.
"Feathertop" is mentioned in Bill Willingham's comic book series Fables . He makes a brief appearance in the prose story "A Wolf in the Fold", in which he accompanies Snow White on her trip to Carpathia to convince the Big Bad Wolf to join their community. He is chosen because, not being made of living flesh, his presence won't arouse the wolf's hunger. He's given a more prominent role later in the spin-off miniseries, Everafter.
Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short story writer. His works often focus on history, morality, and religion.
The Scarlet Letter: A Romance is a work of historical fiction by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne, published in 1850. Set in the Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony during the years 1642 to 1649, the novel tells the story of Hester Prynne, who conceives a daughter with a man to whom she is not married and then struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity. As punishment, she must wear a scarlet letter 'A'. Containing a number of religious and historic allusions, the book explores themes of legalism, sin and guilt.
Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, also known as Mother Mary Alphonsa, was an American writer and religious leader. She was a Catholic religious sister, social worker, and foundress of the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne.
Mosses from an Old Manse is a short story collection by Nathaniel Hawthorne, first published in 1846.
The House of the Seven Gables: A Romance is a Gothic novel written beginning in mid-1850 by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne and published in April 1851 by Ticknor and Fields of Boston. The novel follows a New England family and their ancestral home. In the book, Hawthorne explores themes of guilt, retribution, and atonement, and colors the tale with suggestions of the supernatural and witchcraft. The setting for the book was inspired by the Turner-Ingersoll Mansion, a gabled house in Salem, Massachusetts, belonging to Hawthorne's cousin Susanna Ingersoll, as well as ancestors of Hawthorne who had played a part in the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. The book was well received upon publication and later had a strong influence on the work of H. P. Lovecraft. The House of the Seven Gables has been adapted several times to film and television.
A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys (1851) is a children's book by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne in which he retells several Greek myths. It was followed by a sequel, Tanglewood Tales.
The Scarecrow is a play written by Percy MacKaye in 1908, and first presented on Broadway in 1911. It is based on Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story, "Feathertop", but greatly expands upon the tale. Mackaye himself stated that he hoped that the play would not be taken as a dramatization of "Feathertop", since the intentions of the two works are so different: "The scarecrow Feathertop is ridiculous, as the emblem of a superficial fop; the scarecrow Ravensbane is pitiful, as the emblem of human bathos."
Puritan Passions is a 1923 silent film directed by Frank Tuttle, based on Percy MacKaye's 1908 play The Scarecrow, which was itself based on Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story "Feathertop". The film stars Glenn Hunter, Mary Astor, and stage actor Osgood Perkins. It follows the play faithfully, except that Osgood Perkins' character is called Dickon in the play and Dr. Nicholas in the movie, and Justice Gilead Merton is renamed Justice Gilead Wingate in the film. It is the only theatrical film version – so far – of Percy MacKaye's play, though there were previously two silent film versions of Hawthorne's original story.
"The Ambitious Guest" is a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne. First published in The New-England Magazine in June 1835, it was republished in the second volume of Twice-Told Tales in 1841.
The Scarecrow, an opera, premiered at the University of Texas at Austin in February–March 2006. The music was written by Joseph Turrin and libretto by Bernard Stambler. The opera is based on Percy MacKaye's play, which was in turn based on Nathaniel Hawthorne's last short story, “Feathertop.”
"The May-Pole of Merry Mount" is a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It first appeared in The Token and Atlantic Souvenir in 1836. It was later included in Twice-Told Tales, a collection of Hawthorne's short stories, in 1837. It tells the story of the colony of Mount Wollaston, or Merry Mount, a 17th-century British colony located in what is now Quincy, Massachusetts.
"The Man of Adamant" is a short story written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It was first published in the 1837 edition of The Token and Atlantic Souvenir, edited by Samuel Griswold Goodrich. It later appeared in Hawthorne's final collection of short stories The Snow-Image, and Other Twice-Told Tales, published in 1852 by Ticknor, Reed & Fields.
Dickon is an English masculine given name.
"Roger Malvin's Burial" is a short story by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne. It was first published anonymously in 1832 before its inclusion in the 1846 collection Mosses from an Old Manse. The tale concerns two fictional colonial survivors returning home after the historical battle known as Battle of Pequawket.
Maurice Valency was a playwright, author, critic, and popular professor of Comparative Literature at Columbia University, best known for his award-winning adaptations of plays by Jean Giraudoux and Friedrich Dürrenmatt. He wrote several original plays, but is best known for his adaptations of the plays of others. Valency's version of The Madwoman of Chaillot would become the basis of the Jerry Herman musical Dear World on Broadway.
"The Celestial Railroad" is short story by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne. In the allegorical tale, Hawthorne adopts the style and content of the seventeenth-century allegory The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan. Where Bunyan's tale portrays a Christian's spiritual "journey" through life, Hawthorne's satirizes many contemporary religious practices and philosophies, including transcendentalism.
The Scarecrow is a 2000 American animated musical fantasy film, written and directed by Brian Nissen and Richard Rich, and based on the Nathaniel Hawthorne short story "Feathertop" and the Percy MacKaye play The Scarecrow. The film was released straight-to-VHS by Warner Bros. under their Warner Bros. Family Entertainment label. It is also available for digital download, although it has not been released on DVD as of today.
"The Great Stone Face" is a short story published by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1850. The story reappeared in a full-length book, The Snow-Image, and Other Twice-Told Tales, published by Ticknor, Reed & Fields in 1852. It has since been republished and anthologized many times.
"The Scarecrow" is a two-hour American television play that was broadcast on January 10, 1972, as part of the Hollywood Television Theatre series on PBS. It was based on the classic Percy MacKaye play which was in turn based on Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story, "Feathertop".
