<p>Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story, “The Virtuoso’s Collection” (1842), although unpopular among modern critics and readers, was favored by his contemporary readers and the author himself. James T. Fields recollected in his book that Hawthorne had teased sea-sickened James with his advice to take some curiosities from the story’s stocks as remedies. Contemporary publishers also supported this work, as it was selected for the ” Favorite Authors” series published by Ticknor and Fields in 1860. That the compiler bestowed the first place in the volume to the story, and that the book had been reprinted for 25 consecutive years by another publisher show the regard of Hawthorne’s contemporaries.</p><p>Part of the reason for our indifference these days lies in a discrepancy in the image of museums. The middle of the nineteenth century saw many museums established in east coast cities of the United States. These museums totally differed from modernized ones in that their collections were “miscellaneous”; a lot of the objects were “brought together with no purpose” (Stephen Conn) and they rather resembled “cabinets of wonder.” Hawthorne intends this story to be about a museum, but we cannot understand why Hawthorne scraps together these curious items “whose importance to Hawthorne, if it was ever importance,” according to Mark Van Doren, “can no longer be comprehended.” They are important and meaningful, however, if we perceive the significance of the contemporary museums and how Hawthorne tried to trace them.</p><p>This essay explores “The Virtuoso’s Collection” in the context of an emerging museum culture, and considers Hawthorne’s attempt to remap nineteenth-century American culture in relation to European cultural heritage. Museums flourished as pedagogical entertainment for the working and middle classes and as showcases to display curiosities from international trades and expeditions of those making territorial claims in Oregon. They were also academic institutes to lead the domestic study of natural history and to become independent from the cultural hegemony of Britain. In short, the museum in those days was a site where the interests of U. S. affairs were involved in a complicated manner, and was linked to a move to reconstruct the modern world system. My reading shows how similar the arrangement of space within Hawthorne’s museum is to that of real museum in those days. This indicates Hawthorne’s intention to participate in the move to reconstruct the modern world system we see in the museums. In his case, to reconstruct the cultural hegemony of European classics is the answer. There is no authoritative order in Hawthorne’s museum where miscellaneous collections of curiosities from American monuments and European history are displayed all together. The wandering Jew in the story also plays a role to remap American culture. The legend of the wandering Jew originates in the Middle Ages of Europe, but from the 1830s to the 1860s, there appeared Americanized wandering Jew legends in articles in American newspapers and magazines. Hawthorne’s museum lets us grasp a view of the then current urge to reframe the bourgeoning world system.</p>