The Whole History of Grandfather’s Chair

The Whole History of Grandfather’s Chair is Nathaniel Hawthorne’s children’s history book, originally published in three parts as Grandfather’s Chair, Famous Old People, and The Liberty Tree across 1840 and 1841 and later collected as a single volume. The book provides accessible historical narrative for young readers about the major events and figures of New England history from the early colonial period through the American Revolution.

The framing device of the book is the chair of the title, an old chair that has supposedly been in the grandfather’s family for many generations and that has been the witness to various historical events that the grandfather narrates to his young grandchildren. The chair functions as the structural anchor for the various historical chapters, with each section being framed by the grandfather’s introduction of the chair’s connection to the events being covered.

The historical material that Hawthorne covers includes the major events and figures of early Massachusetts colonial history, the development of the wider New England colonies, the various conflicts of the colonial period, the lead up to the American Revolution, and the major events of the Revolution itself. The narrative voice is gentle and accessible for young readers, with the kind of warm historical storytelling that nineteenth century children’s history reliably delivered.

The book was widely used in nineteenth and early twentieth century American schools and homes as an accessible introduction to New England colonial history. The grandfather framing device and the chair conceit gave the historical material a structural unity that more conventional history books for children did not always achieve, and Hawthorne’s prose throughout provides the kind of literary quality that distinguished his children’s writing from much of the other history for young readers of the period.

For families with young children interested in introducing them to New England colonial history through accessible nineteenth century writing, The Whole History of Grandfather’s Chair remains useful. For students of nineteenth century American children’s literature or of Hawthorne’s wider catalogue, the book is essential.