Antique & Vintage Postcards

Step into the firelit intimacy of one of American literature's most hallowed rooms — the Little Parlor of the Old Manse in Concord, Massachusetts, where Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote "Mosses from an Old Manse" and Ralph Waldo Emerson composed "Nature." This real-photo postcard (RPPC), numbered 18 in a souvenir series, renders the room in crisp silver-gelatin black-and-white: a massive colonial hearth dominates the left, its mantelshelf lined with silver candlesticks and a central portrait miniature, a stuffed owl perched watchfully at the corner. A built-in bookcase brims with leather-bound volumes, and a graceful camelback settee faces a large landscape painting in an ornate gilt frame. The back is blank and unused, suggesting this was a souvenir purchase rather than a mailed card, likely acquired by a visitor during the Old Manse's early tourism era (c. 1910–1925).