"Roger Malvin's Burial" is a short story by American author

Nathaniel Hawthorne Nathaniel Hawthorne (July 4, 1804 – May 19, 1864) was an American novelist and short story writer. His works often focus on history, morality, and religion. He was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, from a family long associated with that t ...

. It was first published anonymously in 1832 before its inclusion in the 1846 collection ''

Mosses from an Old Manse ''Mosses from an Old Manse'' is a short story collection by Nathaniel Hawthorne, first published in 1846. Background and publication history The collection includes several previously published short stories, and was named in honor of The Old Mans ...

''. The tale concerns two fictional colonial survivors returning home after the historical battle known as

Battle of Pequawket The Battle of Pequawket (also known as Lovewell's Fight) occurred on May 9, 1725 (O.S.), during Father Rale's War in northern New England. Captain John Lovewell led a privately organized company of scalp hunters, organized into a makeshift ranger ...

Plot summary

Following

(Hawthorne uses the name ''Lovell's Fight'') in 1725, two survivors of the battle struggle to return home. Roger Malvin and Reuben Bourne are both wounded and weak, and they have little hope that they will survive. They rest near a rock that resembles an enormous tombstone. Malvin, a much older man, asks Reuben to leave him to die alone, since his wounds are mortal. Reuben insists that he will stay with Malvin as long as he remains alive, but the old man knows that this would mean death for both of them. Malvin convinces Reuben to leave. Reuben survives. Because he has not honored his promise to bury the old man, he is not at peace. His unease is exacerbated by his failure to tell his fiancée, Dorcas (Malvin's daughter) that he left her father to die. Reuben is considered a brave man by his compatriots, but inside he feels that he has failed them. Dorcas and Reuben marry, but Reuben's guilt-induced moodiness renders him unfit for normal society. Many years later, when Reuben and Dorcas's son is already grown, Reuben decides that they will move away from the town and settle on a piece of land by themselves. They travel through wilderness. While encamped, Reuben and his son wander into the forest while Dorcas prepares a meal. They become separated. Reuben thinks he hears a deer in the brush and fires his gun, but discovers that he has killed his own son. As he observes the terrain, he realizes it is the same place where he had left Roger Malvin many years before.

Publication history

"Roger Malvin's Burial" was likely conceived as early as 1825, the year Hawthorne graduated from Bowdoin College in

Brunswick, Maine Brunswick is a town in Cumberland County, Maine, United States. The population was 21,756 at the 2020 United States Census. Part of the Portland-South Portland-Biddeford metropolitan area, Brunswick is home to Bowdoin College, the Bowdoin Intern ...

, and the 100th anniversary of the historical event that inspired its plot. The story was first published anonymously in the annual

gift book Gift books, literary annuals, or keepsakes were 19th-century books, often lavishly decorated, which collected essays, short fiction, and poetry. They were primarily published in the autumn, in time for the holiday season and were intended to be g ...

'' The Token'' in 1832. Hawthorne published ''

Twice-Told Tales ''Twice-Told Tales'' is a short story collection in two volumes by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The first volume was published in the spring of 1837 and the second in 1842. The stories had all been previously published in magazines and annuals, hence th ...

'' in 1837, which collected several of his stories previously included in gift books, though it excluded many of his darker stories like "Roger Malvin's Burial", "

My Kinsman, Major Molineux "My Kinsman, Major Molineux" is a short story written by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1831. It first appeared in the 1832 edition of ''The Token and Atlantic Souvenir'', published by Samuel Goodrich. It later appeared in '' The Snow-Ima ...

", and "

Young Goodman Brown "Young Goodman Brown" is a short story published in 1835 by American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne. The story takes place in 17th-century Puritan New England, a common setting for Hawthorne's works, and addresses the Calvinist/Puritan belief that all ...

", each of which has become recognized as one of Hawthorne's early masterpiece by modern critics.Mellow, James R. ''Nathaniel Hawthorne in His Times''. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1980: 77. "Roger Malvin's Burial" was not collected in book form until 1846 with the publication of ''Mosses from an Old Manse'' (1846).

Adaptations to other media

In 1949 the story was adapted to the syndicated radio program ''

The Weird Circle ''The Weird Circle'' was a syndicated radio drama series produced in New York and originally broadcast between 1943 and 1945. Production background The series was a Ziv Production, produced at RCA's New York studios and licensed by the Mutual ...

'' as "The Burial of Roger Malvin".

References

External links

* Lovejoy, David S. 1954. ''Lovewell's Fight and Hawthorne's "Roger Malvin's Burial"''. In: ''The New England Quarterly'', Vol. 27, No. 4 (Dec., 1954), pp. 527-531. The New England Quarterly, Inc. * Mackenzie, Manfred
''Hawthorne's Roger Malvin's Burial: A Postcolonial Reading New''
In: ''Literary History'', Volume 27, Number 3, Summer 1996, pp. 459-472. {{Nathaniel Hawthorne Short stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne 1832 short stories Filicide in fiction