be reissued through a different publisher. At the time of this suggestion, 1844, there were 600 unsold copies of the book. Hawthorne lamented, "I wish Heaven would make me rich enough to buy the copies for the purpose of burning them." After the success of The Scarlet Letter in 1850, Twice-Told Tales was reissued with the help of publisher James T. Fields. In a new preface, Hawthorne wrote that the stories "may be understood and felt by anybody, who will give himself the trouble to read it, and will take up the book in a proper mood." Critical response About a week after the publication of the book, Hawthorne sent a copy to his classmate from Bowdoin College, the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Longfellow had given a speech at their commencement calling for notable contributions to American literature. By this time, Longfellow was working at Harvard University and was becoming popular as a poet. Hawthorne wrote to him, "We were not, it is true, so well acquainted at college, that I can plead an absolute right to inflict my 'twice-told' tediousness upon you; but I have often regretted that we were not better known." In his 14-page critique in the April issue of the North American Review, Longfellow praised the book as a work of genius. "To this little book", Longfellow wrote, "we would say, 'Live ever, sweet, sweet book.' It comes from the hand of a man of genius." For his review of the second edition, Longfellow noted that Hawthorne's writing "is characterized by a large proportion of feminine elements, depth and tenderness of feeling, exceeding purity of mind." He referred to the collection's "The Gentle Boy" as "on the whole, the finest thing he ever wrote". The two authors would eventually build a strong friendship. Generally, reviews were positive. Park Benjamin, Sr. said that the author was "a rose baptized in dew". For the Boston Quarterly Review, Orestes Brownson noted Hawthorne's writings as "a pure and living stream of manly thought and feeling, which characterizes always the true man, the Christian, the republican and the patriot." After reading Twice-Told Tales, Herman Melville wrote to Evert Augustus Duyckinck that the stories weren't meaty enough. "Their deeper meanings are worthy of a Brahmin. Still there is something lacking—a good deal lacking to the plump sphericity of the man. What is that?—He patronise the butcher—he needs roast-beef, done rare." Edgar Allan