The Celestial Railroad #260708

Hawthorne's bright and witty parody upon Bunyan's immortal allegory, The Pilgrim's Progress, first appeared in the Democratic Re view. The satire was so keen and witty and at the same time so genial in tone, that it was republished by the American Sunday-school Union a few months after its first appearance, under the title A Visit to the Celestial City. Hawthorne' s name was not attached to it. He was not then widely known as an author. As one of his biographers says of him at this period, He wrote stories and published them in mag azines, but nobody knew who wrote them.