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Grandfather’s Chair
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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       _ IN writing this ponderous tome, the author's desire has been to describe the eminent characters and remarkable events of our annals in such a form and style that the YOUNG may make acquaintance with them of their own accord. For this purpose, while ostensibly relating the adventures of a chair, he has endeavored to keep a distinct and unbroken thread of authentic history. The chair is made to pass from one to another of those personages of whom he thought it most desirable for the young reader to have vivid and familiar ideas, and whose lives and actions would best enable him to give picturesque sketches of the times. On its sturdy oaken legs it trudges diligently from one scene to another, and seems always to thrust itself in the way, with most benign complacency, whenever an historical personage happens to be looking round for a seat.
       There is certainly no method by which the shadowy outlines of departed men and women can be made to assume the hues of life more effectually than by connecting their images with the substantial and homely reality of a fireside chair. It causes us to feel at once that these characters of history had a private and familiar existence, and were not wholly contained within that cold array of outward action which we are compelled to receive as the adequate representation of their lives. If this impression can be given, much is accomplished.
       Setting aside Grandfather and his auditors, and excepting the adventures of the chair, which form the machinery of the work, nothing in the ensuing pages can be termed fictitious. The author, it is true, has sometimes assumed the license of filling up the outline of history with details for which he has none but imaginative authority, but which, he hopes, do not violate nor give a false coloring to the truth. He believes that, in this respect, his narrative will not be found to convey ideas and impressions of which the reader may hereafter find it necessary to purge his mind.
       The author's great doubt is, whether he has succeeded in writing a book which will be readable by the class for whom he intends it. To make a lively and entertaining narrative for children, with such unmalleable material as is presented by the sombre, stern, and rigid characteristics of the Puritans and their descendants, is quite as difficult an attempt as to manufacture delicate playthings out of the granite, rocks on which New England is founded. _
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AUTHOR'S PREFACE
PART 1
   PART 1 - CHAPTER 1. GRANDFATHER AND THE CHILDREN AND THE CHAIR
   PART 1 - CHAPTER 2. THE PURITANS AND THE LADY ARBELLA
   PART 1 - CHAPTER 3. A RAINY DAY
   PART 1 - CHAPTER 4. TROUBLOUS TIMES
   PART 1 - CHAPTER 5. THE GOVERNMENT OF NEW ENGLAND
   PART 1 - CHAPTER 6. THE PINE-TREE SHILLINGS
   PART 1 - CHAPTER 7. THE QUAKERS AND THE INDIANS
   PART 1 - CHAPTER 8. THE INDIAN BIBLE
   PART 1 - CHAPTER 9. ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND
   PART 1 - CHAPTER 10. THE SUNKEN TREASURE
   PART 1 - CHAPTER 11. WHAT THE CHAIR HAD KNOWN
   PART 1 - APPENDIX
PART 2
   PART 2 - CHAPTER 1. THE CHAIR IN THE FIRELIGHT
   PART 2 - CHAPTER 2. THE SALEM WITCHES
   PART 2 - CHAPTER 3. THE OLD-FASHIONED SCHOOL
   PART 2 - CHAPTER 4. COTTON MATHER
   PART 2 - CHAPTER 5. THE REJECTED BLESSING
   PART 2 - CHAPTER 6. POMPS AND VANITIES
   PART 2 - CHAPTER 7. THE PROVINCIAL MUSTER
   PART 2 - CHAPTER 8. THE OLD FRENCH WAR AND THE ACADIAN EXILES
   PART 2 - CHAPTER 9. THE END OF THE WAR
   PART 2 - CHAPTER 10. THOMAS HUTCHINSON
   PART 2 - APPENDIX
PART 3
   PART 3 - CHAPTER 1. A NEW-YEAR'S DAY
   PART 3 - CHAPTER 2. THE STAMP ACT
   PART 3 - CHAPTER 3. THE HUTCHINSON MOB
   PART 3 - CHAPTER 4. THE BRITISH TROOPS IN BOSTON
   PART 3 - CHAPTER 5. THE BOSTON MASSACRE
   PART 3 - CHAPTER 6. A COLLECTION OF PORTRAITS
   PART 3 - CHAPTER 7. THE TEA PARTY AND LEXINGTON
   PART 3 - CHAPTER 8. THE SIEGE OF BOSTON
   PART 3 - CHAPTER 9. THE TORY'S FAREWELL
   PART 3 - CHAPTER 10. THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE
   PART 3 - CHAPTER 11. GRANDFATHER'S DREAM
   PART 3 - APPENDIX