Sophia Peabody Hawthorne did write after her husband’s death, or rather, she copied their letters and journals in order to keep her husband’s legacy alive, support her family financially, and remain in spiritual communion with Nathaniel. She worked closely with his publisher, James T. Fields, to release their common and travel journals, but she was full of doubts from start to finish; she worried that Nathaniel would not have been pleased with her for publishing their personal writings, and was disappointed with the cool reception the works met. Those who thought they would finally be able to peel back Nathaniel’s veil remained unsatisfied. Sophia’s omission of what would have revealed intimate details of both their elations and trials, particularly her own contributions to the journals, resulted in documents that were too reserved to satisfy public curiosity.
Sophia traveled with her children overseas to Germany to see to Julian’s education with more economy, and eventually moved to England, where she became ill with a form of pneumonia. Una kept vigil at her mother’s bedside the way Sophia had with her all those years ago. In February of 1871, Sophia died with Una and Rose at her side, and was buried at Kensal Green in London. Una died in 1877, in England at the age of thirty-three. In 2006 she was reinterred with Sophia in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts. Sophia now spends her eternal rest with her husband, Nathaniel; her daughter Una; her sister Elizabeth; and their friends the Emersons, the Alcotts, Ellery Channing, and Henry Thoreau, on a gentle hill under a canopy of leaves.