one but Hawthorne himself, until some time after his death, when the
manuscript was found among his papers.  The preparation and copying of his
Note-Books for the press occupied the most of Mrs.  Hawthorne's available
time during the interval from 1864 to 1870; but in the latter year, having
decided to publish the unfinished romance, she began the task of putting
together its loose sheets and deciphering the handwriting, which, towards
the close of Hawthorne's life, had grown somewhat obscure and uncertain.
Her death occurred while she was thus engaged, and the transcription was
completed by her daughters.  The book was then issued simultaneously in
America and England, in 1871. 

Although "Septimius Felton" appeared so much later than "The Marble Faun,"
it was conceived and, in another form, begun before the Italian romance
had presented itself to the author's mind.  The legend of a bloody foot
leaving its imprint where it passed, which figures so prominently in the
following fiction, was brought to Hawthorne's notice on a visit to
Smithell's Hall, Lancashire, England.  [Footnote: See _English
Note-Books,_ April 7, and August 25, 1855.] Only five days after
hearing of it, he made a note in his journal, referring to "my Romance,"
which had to do with a plot involving the affairs of a family established