Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville--so different in temperament and background--were intellectual equals who formed a singular and intense friendship beginning in 1850. This volume, divided into three parts, examines the relationship. The bibliographic part addresses biographical accounts of the friendship, assessments of mutual influences, literary reflections of their relationship, parallel readings of their works, and generic and theoretical approaches to the two. The second part includes seven of the most important biographical and critical essays written on the Hawthorne-Melville relationship. The third appends the surviving primary sources: Melville's Hawthorne and His Mosses essay, Melville's 12 surviving letters to the Hawthornes, man and wife, and the Hawthornes' one surviving letter to Melville.