Books by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Scarlet Letter

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

A dramatic, moving depiction of social defiance and social deference, of passion and human frailty

Set in the harsh Puritan community of seventeenth-century Boston, this tale of an adulterous entanglement that results in an illegitimate birth reveals Nathaniel Hawthorne's concerns with the tension between the public and the private selves. Publicly disgraced and ostracized, Hester Prynne draws on her inner strength and certainty of spirit to emerge as the first true heroine of American fiction. Arthur Dimmesdale stands as a classic study of a seld divided; trapped by the rules of society, he suppresses his passion and disavows his lover, Hester, and their daughter, Pearl. As Nina Baym writes in her Introduction, The Scarlet Letter was not written as realistic, historical fiction, but as a "romance," a creation of the imagination that discloses the truth of the human heart.

For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

The Scarlet Letter

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Hester Prynne is a beautiful young woman. She is also an outcast. In the eyes of her neighbours she has committed an unforgivable sin. Everyone knows that her little daughter Pearl is the product of an illicit affair but no one knows the identity of Pearl’s father. Hester’s refusal to name him brings more condemnation upon her. But she stands strong in the face of public scorn, even when she is forced to wear the sign of her shame sewn onto her clothes: the scarlet letter “A” for “Adulteress.”

The story of Hester Prynne–found out in adultery, pilloried by her Puritan community, and abandoned, in different ways, by both her partner in sin and her vengeance-seeking husband–possesses a reality heightened by Hawthorne’s pure human sympathy and his unmixed devotion to his supposedly fallen but fundamentally innocent heroine.

In its moral force and the beauty of its conciliations, The Scarlet Letter rightly deserves its stature as the first great novel written by an American, the novel that announced an American literature equal to any in the world.

The Scarlet Letter

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

A smash hit in its day, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is the gripping tale of three New England settlers at odds with the seventeenth-century Puritan society in which they live, and remains one of literature's most evocative portraits of a love triangle.

Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, pocket-sized classics bound in real cloth with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. Featuring an afterword by broadcaster Jonty Claypole.

Roger Chillingworth arrives in New England after two years' separation from his wife, Hester Prynne, to find her on trial for adultery. She refuses to reveal her lover and is sentenced to wear a scarlet letter 'A' sewn onto her clothes. Resolving to discover the man's identity, Roger sets out to destroy his rival, while Hester desperately tries to protect her illegitimate daughter from a society determined to condemn them both.

The Scarlet Letter

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Chiltern Publishing creates the most beautiful editions of the World’s finest literature. Your favorite classic titles in a way you have never seen them before; the tactile layers, fine details and beautiful colors of these remarkable covers make these titles feel extra special and will look striking on any shelf.

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a classic novel set in Puritanical Boston in the mid-17th century. It tells the story of Hester Prynne, a young woman who is publicly shamed and ostracized for having a child out of wedlock. Hester is forced to wear a scarlet “A” on her clothing to signify her status as an adulterer. As she struggles to survive in a Puritanical society that is unforgiving of her sins, Hester is eventually able to redeem herself through her strong will and determination. The novel examines themes of sin, guilt, and repentance in a powerful way.
Throughout the novel, readers are able to explore the inner workings of Hester's mind and understand the consequences of her actions and how they affected those around her. The Scarlet Letter is an emotionally charged and thought-provoking story that is sure to stay with readers long after they finish the book.

The Scarlet Letter

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The canonical American masterpiece of sin, guilt, and revenge, in an authoritative new edition from Penguin Classics with a foreword by Tom Perrotta

At once retrospective and radically new, The Scarlet Letter portrays seventeenth-century Puritan New England, a time period irreversibly encoded in the American identity. Hawthorne built one of the most incisive and devastating human dramas ever written out of a community and its outcasts: Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale, one emblazoned with sin and the other distraught with hidden guilt; Pearl, a child born into ostracism; and Roger Chillingworth, driven to vengeance by hatred. Though these characters face a set of specifically troubling circumstances, their words and actions point to moral truths inherent in human affairs, independent of time and place.

The text of this edition, approved by the Center for Scholarly Editions of the Modern Language Association, is the result of an exhaustive examination of Hawthorne’s manuscript and other historical records. Robert Milder provides an enlightening new scholarly introduction and bibliography. Tom Perrotta, whose novel The Leftovers—now a hit HBO show—was influenced by Hawthorne’s work, provides a thoughtful foreword on how he came to appreciate Hawthorne’s masterpiece.

For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

The Scarlet Letter

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

This tragic novel of sin and redemption is Hawthorne's masterpiece of American fiction.

An ardent young woman, her cowardly lover, and her aging vengeful husband—these are the central characters in this stark drama of the conflict between passion and convention in the harsh world of seventeenth-century Boston. Tremendously moving and rich in psychological insight, this dramatic depiction of the struggle between mind and heart illuminates Hawthorne's concern with our Puritan past and its influence on American life.

With an Introduction by Brenda Wineapple
and an Afterword by Regina Barreca

This edition includes an early Hawthorne story that contains the germ of The Scarlet Letter.

The Scarlet Letter

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Boston, mid-seventeenth century: Hester Prynne, dignified and silent, is led through prison doors to her public shaming by her censorious Puritan neighbors. Holding her illegitimate child to her breast and bearing a bright scarlet letter "A" embroidered on her bodice, Hester must now struggle to create a new life for herself and her child in this harsh and unforgiving community. When her missing spouse reappears and takes up residence in town under an assumed identity, the stage is set for an explosive confrontation between the truly moral and the merely religious.

The Scarlet Letter (Dover Thrift Editions: Classic Novels)

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

An "A" for "adultery" marks Hester Prynne as an outcast from the society of colonial Boston. Although forced by the puritanical town fathers to wear a bright red badge of shame, Hester steadfastly resists their efforts to discover the identity of her baby's father. The return of her long-absent spouse brings new pressure on the young mother, as the aggrieved husband undertakes a long-term plot to reveal Hester's partner in adultery and force him to share her disgrace.
Masterful in its symbolism and compelling in its character studies, Nathaniel Hawthorne's tale of punishment and reconciliation examines the concepts of sin, guilt, and pride. The Scarlet Letter was published to immediate acclaim in 1850. Its timeless exploration of moral and spiritual issues, along with its philosophical and psychological insights, keep it ever relevant for students of American literature and lovers of fiction.
A selection of the Common Core State Standards Initiative.

The Scarlet Letter: The Manga Edition

by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Yali Lin, Adam Sexton

The Scarlet Letter: The Manga Edition will be a hit with both manga readers and in the classroom. A four-page essay at the beginning ties the novel and manga together; the rest of the book is taken up with the manga novel itself. So, there should be strong carryover between those people who are manga readers and those teachers/students who want a new and unique way to read the plays.Our The Scarlet Letter manga is true to the original context of the play--we don't take Hester and Pearl and set them in a setting/time that's not relevant to Hawthorne's original and intended time/setting. You could say that ours is "true" to the novel.

The House of the Seven Gables (Dover Thrift Editions: Classic Novels)

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

A gloomy New England mansion provides the setting for this classic exploration of ancestral guilt and its expiation through the love and goodwill of succeeding generations.
Nathaniel Hawthorne drew inspiration for this story of an immorally obtained property from the role his forebears played in the 17th-century Salem witch trials. Built over an unquiet grave, the House of the Seven Gables carries a dying man's curse that blights the lives of its residents for over two centuries. Now Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon, an iron-hearted hypocrite and intellectual heir to the mansion's unscrupulous founder, is attempting to railroad a pair of his elderly relatives out of the house. Only two young people stand in his way — a visiting country cousin and an enigmatic boarder skilled in mesmerism.
Hawthorne envisioned this family drama of evil, revenge, and resolution as a microcosm of Salem's own history as in idealistic society corrupted by greed and pride. His enduring view of the darkness at the heart of the national soul has made The House of the Seven Gables a landmark of American literature.

The House of the Seven Gables (Signet Classics)

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The curse of Matthew Maule, a man hanged for witchcraft, descends on seven generations of the inhabitants of an old New England house, in this 150th anniversary edition of the classic American novel. Reprint.

The House of the Seven Gables (Signet Classics)

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

This enduring novel of crime and retribution vividly reflects the social and moral values of New England in the 1840s.

Nathaniel Hawthorne's gripping psychological drama concerns the Pyncheon family, a dynasty founded on pious theft, who live for generations under a dead man's curse until their house is finally exorcised by love. Hawthorne, by birth and education, was instilled with the Puritan belief in America's limitless promise. Yet - in part because of blemishes on his own family history - he also saw the darker side of the young nation. Like his twentieth-century heirs William Faulkner and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hawthorne peered behind propriety's façade and exposed the true human condition.

The House of the Seven Gables

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

In a sleepy little New England village stands a dark, weather-beaten, many-gabled house. This brooding mansion is haunted by a centuries-old curse that casts the shadow of ancestral sin upon the last four members of the distinctive Pyncheon family. Mysterious deaths threaten the living. Musty documents nestle behind hidden panels carrying the secret of the family’s salvation—or its downfall.

Hawthorne called The House of the Seven Gables “a Romance,” and freely bestowed upon it many fascinating gothic touches. A brilliant intertwining of the popular, the symbolic, and the historical, the novel is a powerful exploration of personal and national guilt, a work that Henry James declared “the closest approach we are likely to have to the Great American Novel.”

The Scarlet Letter (Bantam Classics)

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Hailed by Henry James as "the finest piece of imaginative writing yet put forth in the country," Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter reaches to our nation's historical and moral roots for the material of great tragedy. Set in an early New England colony, the novel shows the terrible impact a single, passionate act has on the lives of three members of the community: the defiant Hester Prynne; the fiery, tortured Reverend Dimmesdale; and the obsessed, vengeful Chillingworth.

With The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne became the first American novelist to forge from our Puritan heritage a universal classic, a masterful exploration of humanity's unending struggle with sin, guilt and pride.

The Scarlet Letter: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

An iconic novel dressed in a fierce design by acclaimed fashion illustrator Ruben Toledo. Other titles in the couture-inspired collection include Jane Eyre, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Dracula, Wuthering Heights and Pride and Prejudice.Ruben Toledo’s breathtaking drawings have appeared in such high-fashion magazines as Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and Visionaire. Now he’s turning his talented hand to illustrating the gorgeous deluxe editions of three of the most beloved novels in literature. Here Elizabeth Bennet’s rejection of Mr. Darcy, Hester Prynne’s fateful letter “A”, and Catherine Earnshaw’s wanderings on the Yorkshire moors are transformed into witty and surreal landscapes to appeal to the novels’ aficionados and the most discerning designer’s eyes.

For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

The House of the Seven Gables (The Penguin American Library)

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

FThis enduring novel of crime and retribution vividly reflects the social and moral values of New England in the 1840s.

Nathaniel Hawthorne's gripping psychological drama concerns the Pyncheon family, a dynasty founded on pious theft, who live for generations under a dead man's curse until their house is finally exorcised by love. Hawthorne, by birth and education, was instilled with the Puritan belief in America's limitless promise. Yet - in part because of blemishes on his own family history - he also saw the darker side of the young nation. Like his twentieth-century heirs William Faulkner and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hawthorne peered behind propriety's façade and exposed the true human condition.

Selected Tales and Sketches (Penguin Classics)

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The short fiction of a writer who helped to shape the course of American literature. With a determined commitment to the history of his native land, Nathaniel Hawthorne revealed, more incisively than any writer of his generation, the nature of a distinctly American consciousness. The pieces collected here deal with essentially American matters: the Puritan past, the Indians, the Revolution. But Hawthorne was highly - often wickedly - unorthodox in his account of life in early America, and his precisely constructed plots quickly engage the reader's imagination. Written in the 1820s, 30s, and 40s, these works are informed by themes that reappear in Hawthorne's longer works: The Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Gables and The Blithedale Romance. And, as Michael J. Colacurcio points out in his excellent introduction, they are themes that are now deeply embedded in the American literary tradition.

The Portable Hawthorne (Penguin Classics)

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Portable Hawthorne includes writings from each major stage in the career of Nathaniel Hawthorne: a number of his most intriguing early tales, all of The Scarlet Letter, excerpts from his three subsequently published romances—The House of Seven Gables, The Blithedale Romance, and The Marble Faun—as well as passages from his European journals and a sampling of his last, unfinished works. The editor’s introduction and head notes trace the evolution of Hawthorne’s writing over the course of his long career: from the tales, to their apotheosis in The Scarlet Letter, through his popular romances, to his private journals and frustrated attempts at another romance. Readers looking for a critical vantage point from which to see Hawthorne whole—his artistic rise, triumph, and sad decline—can find it in this collection.

The Scarlet Letter (Oxford World's Classics)

by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Cindy Weinstein

"Thou and thine, Hester Prynne, belong to me." With these chilling words a husband claims his wife after a two-year absence. But the child she clutches is not his, and Hester wears a scarlet "A" upon her breast, the sign of adultery visible to all. Under an assumed name, her husband begins his vindictive search for her lover, determined to expose what Hester is equally determined to protect. Defiant and proud, Hester witnesses the degradation of two very different men, as moral codes and legal imperatives painfully collide. Set in the Puritan community of seventeenth-century Boston, The Scarlet Letter also sheds light on the nineteenth century in which it was written, as Hawthorne explores his ambivalent relations with his Puritan forebears. The text of this edition is taken from the Centenary Edition of Hawthorne's works, the most authoritative critical edition. It includes a new, wide-ranging introduction that sheds light on the novel's autobiographical, historical, and literary contexts, a comprehensive and up-to-date bibliography, and thorough notes that provide essential information on Puritan and nineteenth-century life.

About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Hawthorne's Short Stories (Vintage Classics)

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Twenty-four of the best short stories by one of the early masters of the form, in the definitive collection edited by acclaimed scholar Newton Arvin.

Nathaniel Hawthorne was one of the greatest American writers of the nineteenth century, and some of his most powerful work was in the form of fable-like tales that make rich use of allegory and symbolism. The dark beauty and moral force of his imagination are evident in such enduring masterpieces as "Young Goodman Brown," in which a young man who believes he has witnessed a satanic initiation can never see his pious neighbors the same way again; “Rappaccini's Daughter," about a lovely young girl who has been raised in isolation among dangerous poisons; and "The Birthmark," in which a scientist obsessed with perfection destroys the flaw that makes his otherwise flawless wife both beautiful and human.

The Celestial Railroad and Other Stories (Signet Classics)

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s insight into the Puritan’s simultaneous need for fulfillment and self-destruction, D. H. Lawrence wrote, “Nathaniel knew disagreeable things in his inner soul. He was careful to send them out in disguise.” By means of artfully crafted and compelling tales, Hawthorne explored the destinies and concerns of early American settlers and citizens. In several of the stories in this collection, characters who hold themselves apart from their fellow man fall prey to the corroding desires of lust for perfection. Then they unwittingly commit evils—against themselves and others—in the name of pride. Edgar Allan Poe noted of Hawthorne’s writing: “Every word tells, and there is not a word which does not tell.”

Hawthorne's Short Stories

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Here are the best of Hawthorne's short stories. There are twenty-four of them -- not only the most familiar, but also many that are virtually unknown to the average reader. The selection was made by Professor Newton Arvin of Smith College, a recognized authority on Hawthorne and a distinguished literary critic as well. His fine introduction admirably interprets Hawthorne's mind and art.

The Marble Faun (Dover Thrift Editions)

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Murder and romance, innocence and experience dominate this masterfully constructed novel set in Rome during the mid-19th century.
Three young American artists and their friend, an Italian count, find their lives irrevocably linked when one of them commits a murder. Nathaniel Hawthorne's final novel symbolizing the Fall of Man is a captivating tale concerned as much with the power and beauty of art as with the striking, intimate details of the historic sites visited by the travelers.
A provocative view at Americans abroad, this long-overlooked novel is "must reading" for anyone who relishes crimes of passion set against the picturesque details of Old World landmarks.

The Scarlet Letter (Modern Library Classics)

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Introduction by Kathryn Harrison
Commentary by Nathaniel Hawthorne, W. D. Howells, and Carl Van Doren

A stark tale of adultery, guilt, and social repression in Puritan New England, The Scarlet Letter is a foundational work of American literature. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s exploration of the dichotomy between the public and private self, internal passion and external convention, gives us the unforgettable Hester Prynne, who discovers strength in the face of ostracism and emerges as a heroine ahead of her time. As Kathryn Harrison points out in her Introduction, Hester is “the herald of the modern heroine.”

Includes a Modern Library Reading Group Guide

The Scarlet Letter (Z Lit Classics)

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Inspired by current cultural movements and the new wave of feminism, these releases of classic books feature strong female protagonists who must navigate difficult situations involving class and power, love and loss, sex and family, independence and societal norms, and more.

The red letter on Hester Prynne’s dress proclaims a dangerous statement: that she, married and with a young daughter, committed the sin of adultery. First jailed, now Hester finds herself defenseless on a stage, to be judged and condemned in front of the whole community.
Yet it is the young clergyman Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale who seems to bear a heavy conscience for being just an innocent bystander, while an enraged man who calls himself Roger Chillingworth hides among the wrathful citizens below. Neither are who they appear, and their ties to Hester share more secrets than other people know. With her and her daughter’s livelihoods and the truth at stake, Hester must fight against everything her world believes in if she wants to live and raise her daughter in peace.
First published in 1850 and lauded as Nathaniel Hawthorne’s masterpiece, The Scarlet Letter explores themes of marriage, adultery, sin, and the religious values that were embedded in a Puritan society, emerging to question the means and ends of revenge and repentance, justice and judgment, and what knowledge and truth mean in relation to morality.

Z Lit Classics revives some of the most beloved works in classic literature in a luxe, eye-catching paperback format to appeal to the Generation Z buyer, though these timeless stories will appeal to anyone interested in the female experience throughout history. Each book also comes with a tearaway bookmark hidden inside the back flap.

Greek Myths and Legends: Tales of the Gods and Heroes of Ancient Greece (Collectible Myths and Legends)

by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Emilie K. Baker

Meet legendary heroes, powerful goddesses and vengeful monsters in this beautiful hardback collection of Greek and Roman mythology, presented with gold cover embossing and sprayed edges.

A tapestry of timeless myths and legends that form the bedrock of classical literature. The collection is presented with an accessible prose style, which serves as an inviting gateway to the classical gods, their pantheon of gods and heroes, and their rich array of narratives that have inspired countless adaptations throughout millennia. Curated by Emilie K. Baker, the stories are drawn from a deep well of mythology, bringing the adventures and trials of characters like Perseus, Hercules, and Romulus to new generations, and situating them within their cultural contexts.

Includes:
• The Story of Pandora
• Hades and the Underworld
• Poseidon and the Sea-Gods
• Pan and the Nymphs
• The Love of Apollo
• The Calydonian Hunt
• Oedipus

This ornate hardback edition features gold embossing on the font and back cover, full-color endpaper designs, ivory pages and stencilled page edges, making a wonderful collectible edition for any mythology lover.

ABOUT THE SERIES: The Collectible Myth and Legends series contains luxurious gold embossed gift editions of classic myth and legends from around the world, featuring full-color endpaper designs, ivory pages and striking stenciled page edges.

Classical Mythology: Myths and Legends of the Ancient World (Arcturus Gilded Classics)

by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Thomas Bulfinch, F. Storr, V.C. Turnbull, H.P. Maskell, Guy E. Lloyd, M. M. Bird, Hope Moncrieff

Travel back to a time when divine beings mixed with mortals with this deluxe hardback treasury of classical mythology, beautifully presented with classic illustrations, patterned endpapers and gold gilded page edges.

From the legends of Hercules and the Titans, to tales of the underworld and the destruction of Troy, this elegant collection contains over 40 fascinating tales retold by a variety of expert storytellers. Readers can discover the classic legends behind famed heroes, clever sorcerers and dangerous deities, including Hades, Pandora, Ulysses, Oedipus, Theseus, Circe and Icarus, and why their enduring mythologies are still remembered today. These are beautifully illustrated with dramatic scenes from master artists of the 16th to the 19th century.

Includes:
• Epimetheus and Pandora
• The Quest of the Golden Fleece
• Theseus and the Minotaur
• The Wooden Horse
• The Sack of Troy
• Ulysses in Hades
• Circe's Palace
• The Story of Daedalus and Icarus

This luxurious edition features gilded page edges, a gold-embossed cover design, patterned endpapers and stunning classic illustrations, making a wonderful gift or collectible for any mythology lover.

ABOUT THE SERIES: The Arcturus Gilded Classics series presents luxury gift editions of classics works, printed on opulent ivory paper, featuring hardcover Wibilin binding, foil-embossed cover designs, beautifully designed end-papers and gilded page edges. These make perfect collectibles for lovers of classic literature.

Gothic Horror Short Stories (Arcturus Classic Mysteries and Marvels, 3)

by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mary Shelley, Elizabeth Gaskell, Edgar Allan Poe, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Edward Frederic Benson

This handsome foil accented hardcover brings together 23 chilling tales by landmark gothic writers, including Edgar Allan Poe, Mary Shelley, Sheridan Le Fanu, Sir Walter Scott and many more.

Gothic fiction emerged in the 18th century, recognized for its bleak and sinister landscapes which housed unnatural forces of evil. Often controversial in their time, these stories pushed the boundaries of what was possible in fiction and evoked unsettling emotions as they told their tales of mysterious places, lost secrets, and sudden, shocking violence.

This collection brings together the very best within the genre, featuring crumbling castles, chilling cathedrals, and haunted manors as their eerie settings. Supernatural terrors lurk around every corner.

Includes:
• The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe
• The Yellow Wall-paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
• Berenice by Edgar Allan Poe
• The Invisible Girl by Mary Shelley
• The Tapestried Chamber by Sir Walter Scott

This wonderful collectible edition with striking red and silver foil accents is sure to terrify and entertain in equal measure.

ABOUT THE SERIES: The Arcturus Classic Mysteries and Marvels series brings together thrilling short stories from classic fiction, including spine-chilling ghost stories, gripping detective fiction and cosmic horror. These hardback anthologies with foil accented cover designs make wonderful gifts for any classic lover.

Classical Mythology: Illustrated by Walter Crane (Arcturus Masterpiece Classics)

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

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The Scarlet Letter (Arcturus Ornate Classics)

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

This handsome gift edition presents Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic work, The Scarlet Letter, featuring a luxurious gold embossed cover design, gilded page edges and patterned endpapers.

Nathaniel Hawthorne's story of love and adultery caused a stir when it appeared in 1850 and remains a milestone in American fiction. When the elderly husband of Hester Prynne returns unexpectedly to their New England village to find his wife nursing an illegitimate baby and wearing a scarlet letter 'A' - for Adulteress - embroidered on her dress, he embarks on a vengeful hunt for the child's father. Hester refuses to name him because he holds a respected position in the Puritan community, and in desperation, the lovers make a secret plan to flee to Europe with their young daughter. The Scarlet Letter was an instant bestseller when it was first published in 1850 and remains so today.

This pocket gift edition contains the classic and unabridged text, presented with a gold embossed cover design, ivory pages, beautifully designed endpapers and gold gilded page edges. Part of the Arcturus Ornate Classics series, this book makes wonderful gift for any lover of classic fiction.

ABOUT THE SERIES: Arcturus Ornate Classics are beautifully bound editions of iconic literary works across history. These compact, foil-embossed hardbacks are printed using deluxe ivory paper and make the perfect gift.

The Scarlet Letter (No Fear) (Volume 2)

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Have you ever tried to read The Scarlet Letter but realized midway through the second sentence that you were already lost? No Fear: The Scarlet Letter will change all that. No need to worry about losing the thread anymore: whenever Hawthorne’s sentences become too convoluted to follow, or you can’t figure out exactly what he’s talking about, simply look across at the right-hand page and a simplified, modernized text—using the kind of English we actually speak today—will set you back on track. Soon you’ll be reading Hawthorne’s own words fearlessly—and actually enjoying it. - Part of a very successful series
- The Scarlet Letter is a required book in many high school and university English classes, and this will help students understand Hawthorne’s classic novel

Tanglewood Tales (Calla Editions)

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

One of 19th-century America's greatest authors recounts timeless tales from Greek mythology in this grand hardcover facsimile. Hawthorne's evocative interpretations of stories about Theseus and the Minotaur, Circe the enchantress, Proserpine's abduction into the underworld, Jason's quest for the Golden Fleece, and other ancient legends are graced by 24 delicate color and black-and-white illustrations by Virginia Frances Sterrett.

House of the Seven Gables (Calico Illustrated Classics Set 2)

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic tale of family honor brings us the Pyncheon family. From the deception of the first Colonel Pyncheon to the evilness of the current Judge Pyncheon, the family's curses, troubles, and few happinesses are revealed. Follow all happenings of the family home in the Calico Illustrated Classics adaptation of Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables.

The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne Classic Novel, (Hester Prynne, Adultery, Romantic Tragedy), Ribbon Page Marker, Perfect for Gifting

by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Paper Mill Press

This edition of Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic novel features a suede-like custom cover with beautiful metallic foiling and a ribbon marker.

In a masterwork of historical fiction, The Scarlet Letter presents a powerful view on legalism, sin and guilt during the seventeenth century. This romantic tragedy revolves around Hester Prynne, a young woman who conceives a daughter through an affair. Follow the life and hardships of Hester as she struggles to rebuild a life of dignity after this unforgettable sin.

Rappaccini's Daughter (Hesperus Classics)

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Part fairy tale, part Gothic horror story, Rappaccini’s Daughter is an inspired tale of creation and control. It is published here with two additional short stories by Hawthorne: Young Goodman Brown and A Select Party. Giovanni Guasconti, a student at the University of Padua, is enchanted to discover a nearby garden of the most exquisite beauty. In it abides a young woman, perhaps the most beautiful Giovanni has ever seen. Yet as he looks out from an upstairs window, he soon learns that the garden—and the matchless Beatrice—are not the work of Mother Nature, but rather the result of a monstrous abomination of creativity. An ingenious biblical parody, the tale’s fantastical quality is brilliantly echoed in the two accompanying short stories. Read together, they display all Hawthorne’s gifts as a storyteller. Novelist, essayist, and moralist, Nathaniel Hawthorne is one of America’s greatest writers, best known for his remarkable novel The Scarlet Letter.

Twenty Days with Julian and Little Bunny by Papa (New York Review Books)

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

On July 28, 1851, Nathaniel Hawthorne's wife Sophia and daughters Una and Rose left their house in Western Massachusetts to visit relatives near Boston. Hawthorne and his five-year-old son Julian stayed behind. How father and son got along over the next three weeks is the subject of this tender and funny extract from Hawthorne's notebooks.

"At about six o'clock I looked over the edge of my bed and saw that Julian was awake, peeping sideways at me." Each day starts early and is mostly given over to swimming and skipping stones, berry-picking and subduing armies of thistles. There are lots of questions ("It really does seem as if he has baited me with more questions, references, and observations, than mortal father ought to be expected to endure"), a visit to a Shaker community, domestic crises concerning a pet rabbit, and some poignant moments of loneliness ("I went to bed at about nine and longed for Phoebe"). And one evening Mr. Herman Melville comes by to enjoy a late-night discussion of eternity over cigars.

With an introduction by Paul Auster that paints a beautifully observed, intimate picture of the Hawthornes at home, this little-known, true-life story by a great American writer emerges from obscurity to shine a delightful light upon family life—then and now.

The Marble Faun: or, The Romance of Monte Beni (Penguin Classics)

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Hawthorne's novel of Americans abroad, the first novel to explore the influence of European cultural ideas on American morality. Although it is set in Rome, the fictive world of The Marble Faun depends not on Italy's social or historical significance, but rather on its aesthetic importance as a definer of 'civilization'. As in The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne is concerned here with the nature of transgression and guilt. A murder, motivated by love, affects not only Donatello, the murderer, but his beloved Miriam and their friends Hilda and Kenyon. As he explores the reactions of each to the crime, Hawthorne dramatizes both the freedoms a new cultural model inspires and the self-censoring conformities it requires. His examination of the influence of European culture on American travellers lay the groundwork for such later works of American fiction as Mark Twain's The Innocents Abroad and Henry James' The Portrait of a Lady.

The American Transcendentalists: Essential Writings (Modern Library Classics)

by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller

Transcendentalism was the first major intellectual movement in U.S. history, championing the inherent divinity of each individual, as well as the value of collective social action. In the mid-nineteenth century, the movement took off, changing how Americans thought about religion, literature, the natural world, class distinctions, the role of women, and the existence of slavery.
Edited by the eminent scholar Lawrence Buell, this comprehensive anthology contains the essential writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, and their fellow visionaries. There are also reflections on the movement by Charles Dickens, Henry James, Walt Whitman, Louisa May Alcott, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. This remarkable volume introduces the radical innovations of a brilliant group of thinkers whose impact on religious thought, social reform, philosophy, and literature continues to reverberate in the twenty-first century.

The Scarlet Letter and Other Writings: A Norton Critical Edition (Norton Critical Editions)

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

This perennially popular Norton Critical Edition has been revised to reflect the most current scholarly approaches to The Scarlet Letter―Hawthorne’s most widely read novel―as well as to the five short prose works―“Mrs. Hutchinson,” “Endicott and the Red Cross,” “Young Goodman Brown,” “The Minister’s Black Veil,” and “The Birth-mark”―that closely relate to the 1850 novel. This Second Norton Critical Edition also includes:
· Revised and expanded explanatory footnotes, a new preface, and a note on the text by Leland S. Person.
· Key passages from Hawthorne’s notebooks and letters that suggest the close relationship between his private and public writings
· Seven new critical essays by Brook Thomas, Michael Ryan, Thomas R. Mitchell, Jay Grossman, Jamie Barlowe, John Ronan, and John F. Birk.
· A Chronology and revised and expanded Selected Bibliography.

Young Goodman Brown and Other Tales (Oxford World's Classics)

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The first paperback edition to include full annotations of these twenty Hawthorne tales written between the 1830s and 50s, this volume contains the classic pieces "Young Goodman Brown," "The Maypole of Merry Mount," "The Birthmark," "The Celestial Railroad," and "Earth's Holocaust," as well as tales, such as "My Kinsman, Major Molineux," which represent Hawthorne's interest in the spiritual history of New England.

About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Nathaniel Hawthorne : Tales and Sketches (Library of America)

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

This Library of America volume offers what no reader has ever been able to find—an authoritative edition of all the tales and sketches of Nathaniel Hawthorne in a single comprehensive volume. Everything is included from his three books of stories, Twice-told Tales (1837, revised 1851), Mosses from an Old Manse (1846, 1854), and The Snow-Image, and Other Twice-told Tales (1851), and from his two books of stories for children based on classical myths, A Wonder Book for Girls and Boys (1852) and Tanglewood Tales (1853)—along with sixteen stories not found in any of these volumes.

The stories are arranged, as they never have been in any other edition, in the order of their periodical publication. Readers of Hawthorne will thereby get a unique sense of how he became one of the most powerful and experimental writers of American fiction.

Here are many familiar but always surprising works like “Young Goodman Brown,” “Wakefield,” “The Birth-mark,” “The Artist of the Beautiful,” “Rappaccini’s Daughter,” and “Ethan Brand.” And here, too, are many others that deserve to be better known, like:
• “Roger Malvin’s Burial,” a suspenseful story of guilt and parricide;
• “The May-Pole of Merry Mount,” where the chances for human love are perilously suspended between the silken license of the revelers and the iron rectitude of the Puritans;
• the masterly tale “My Kinsman, Major Molineux,” full of the pains and terrors of national and familial separations, the severing of the ties of blood and culture that united the colonies to England;
• and the exquisite little story “The Wives of the Dead,” about the ambiguities of love and loss, in which, as so often in Hawthorne, the reader at the end is left in a kind of awe at the multiple possibilities of meaning.

To read these stories is to understand anew why Hawthorne is a great artist and an astonishingly contemporary one.

LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.

Nathaniel Hawthorne : Collected Novels: Fanshawe, The Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Gables, The Blithedale Romance, The Marble Faun (Library of America)

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Library of America presents in one giftable collection all 5 of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s world-famous novels—including The House of the Seven Gables and The Scarlet Letter.

Written in a richly suggestive style that seems remarkably contemporary, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novels permeated by his own history as well as America’s.

In The House of the Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne alludes to his ancestor’s involvement in the Salem witch trials, as he follows the fortunes of two rival families, the Maules and the Pyncheons. The novel moves across 150 years of American history, from an ancestral crime condoned by Puritan theocracy to reconciliation and a new beginning in the bustling Jacksonian era.

Considered Hawthorne’s greatest work, The Scarlet Letter is a dramatic allegory of the social consequences of adultery and the subversive force of personal desire in a community of laws. The transgression of Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale, the innate lawlessness of their bastard child Pearl, and the torturous jealousy of the husband Roger Chillingworth eventually erupt through the stern reserve of Puritan Boston. The Scarlet Letter engages the moral and romantic imagination of readers who ponder the question of sexual freedom and its place in the social world.

Fanshawe is an engrossing apprentice work that Hawthorne published anonymously and later sought to suppress. Written during his undergraduate years at Bowdoin College, it is a tragic romance of an ascetic scholar’s love for a merchant’s daughter.

The Blithedale Romance is a novel about the perils, which Hawthorne knew first-hand, of living in a utopian community. The utilitarian reformer Hollingsworth, the reticent narrator Miles Coverdale, the unearthly Priscilla, and the sensuous Zenobia (purportedly modeled on Margaret Fuller) act out a drama of love and rejection, idealism and chicanery, millennial hope and suicidal despair on an experimental commune in rural Massachusetts.

The Marble Faun, Hawthorne’s last finished novel, uses Italian landscapes where sunlight gives way to mythological shadings as a background for mysteries of identity and murder. Its two young Americans, Kenyon and Hilda, become caught up in the disastrous passion of Donatello, an ingenuous nobleman, for the beautiful, mysterious Miriam, a woman trying to escape her past.

The Scarlet Letter and Other Writings (Norton Critical Editions)

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

This Norton Critical Edition of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s most widely read novel appears during the bicentennial anniversary year of his birth. The text of The Scarlet Letter is based on the 1850 third edition, the first set in stereotype plates and the basis of subsequent printings in Hawthorne’s lifetime. An invaluable selection of contextual material includes five Hawthorne stories that are closely related to The Scarlet Letter, along with relevant letters and notebook entries. A substantial excerpt from Hawthorne’s campaign biography of Franklin Pierce offers a revealing glimpse at Hawthorne’s political thought, especially regarding slavery and abolition. "Criticism" provides a comprehensive overview of early and modern commentary on The Scarlet Letter and the stories in this edition, including nineteenth-century reviews of the novel and critical essays by Robert S. Levine, Nina Baym, Larry J. Reynolds, and Jean Fagan Yellin. A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included.

The House of the Seven Gables (Modern Library Classics)

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

First published in 1851, The House of the Seven Gables is one of Hawthorne's defining works, a vivid depiction of American life and values replete with brilliantly etched characters. The tale of a cursed house with a "mysterious and terrible past" and the generations linked to it, Hawthorne's chronicle of the Maule and Pyncheon families over two centuries reveals, in Mary Oliver's words, "lives caught in the common fire of history."

This Modern Library Paperback Classics edition uses the definitive text as prepared for The Centenary Edition of the Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne; this is the Approved Edition of the Center for Scholarly Editions (Modern Language Association). It includes newly commissioned notes on the text.

The Marble Faun (Oxford World's Classics)

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The fragility-and the durability-of human life and art dominate this story of American expatriates in Italy in the mid-nineteenth century. Befriended by Donatello, a young Italian with the classical grace of the "Marble Faun," Miriam, Hilda, and Kenyon find their pursuit of art taking a sinister turn as Miriam's unhappy past precipitates the present into tragedy.

Hawthorne's 'International Novel' dramatizes the confrontation of the Old World and the New and the uncertain relationship between the 'authentic' and the 'fake' in life as in art. The author's evocative descriptions of classic sites made The Marble Faun a favorite guidebook to Rome for Victorian tourists, but this richly ambiguous symbolic romance is also the story of a murder, and a parable of the Fall of Man. As the characters find their civilized existence disrupted by the awful consequences of impulse, Hawthorne leads his readers to question the value of Art and Culture and addresses the great evolutionary debate which was beginning to shake Victorian society.

About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

The Scarlet Letter (Cambridge Literature)

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Set in 17th-century Puritan New England, this story of illicit passion, guilt and punishment revolves around the beautiful and mysterious Hester Prynne. She is condemned to wear a scarlet letter as a sign of her adultery, and it has a strange and disturbing effect upon those around her--neighbours, husband, lover and child. Cambridge Literature is a series of study texts which presents writing in the English-speaking world from the 16th century up to the present day. The series includes novels, drama, short stories, poetry, essays and other types of non-fiction. Each edition has the complete text with an appropriate glossary. The student will find in each volume a helpful introduction and a full section of resource notes encouraging active and imaginative study methods.

The Blithedale Romance (Oxford World's Classics)

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Abjuring the city for a pastoral life, a group of utopians set out to reform a dissipated America. But the group is a powerful mix of competing ambitions and its idealism finds little satisfaction in farmwork. Instead, of changing the world, the members of the Blithedale community individually pursue egotistical paths that ultimately lead to tragedy. Hawthorne's tale both mourns and satirizes a rural idyll not unlike that of nineteenth-century America at large.

About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Selected Stories (The John Harvard Library)

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Dark, weird, psychologically complex, Hawthorne’s short fiction continues to fascinate readers. Brenda Wineapple has made a generous selection of Hawthorne’s stories, including some of his best-known tales as well as other, less-often anthologized gems. In her introduction, she explores a writer whose best stories, as Wineapple has elsewhere observed, “penetrate the secret horrors of ordinary life, those interstices in the general routine where suddenly something or someone shifts out of place, changing everything.”

The John Harvard Library edition reproduces the authoritative texts of Hawthorne’s stories in The Centenary Edition of the Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne.

The Blithedale Romance (The John Harvard Library)

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

One of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s great romances, The Blithedale Romance draws upon the author’s experiences at Brook Farm, the short-lived utopian community where Hawthorne spent much of 1841. Blithedale (“Happy Valley”), another would-be modern Arcadia, is the stage for Hawthorne’s grimly comic tragedy (Henry James famously called the novel “the lightest, the brightest, the liveliest” of Hawthorne’s “unhumorous fictions”). In his introduction, Robert S. Levine considers biographical and historical contexts and offers a fresh appreciation of the novel’s ironic first-person narrator. The John Harvard Library edition reproduces the authoritative text of The Blithedale Romance in The Centenary Edition of the Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne.

A Wonder Book: Heroes and Monsters of Greek Mythology (Dover Children's Evergreen Classics)

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Teeming with monsters, magic, and adventure, this captivating children's classic by one of America's greatest writers retells six legendary tales of incredible warriors and evil creatures.
Using a fictional narrator who tells engrossing stories to his young relatives on quiet hillsides, in secluded vales, and other attractive settings, Nathaniel Hawthorne draws his readers into the imaginative and ancient world of Greek mythology. There, they meet King Midas, the man with an unusual power, in "The Golden Touch"; Hercules, the legendary hero and strongman, in "The Three Golden Apples"; cruel witches with snakes for hair, in "The Gorgon's Head"; and "The Chimaera," a monster that is part lion, part goat, and part snake. An enchanting account of Pandora and an enticing box is recounted in "The Paradise of Children," while "The Miraculous Pitcher" tells a heartwarming tale about the rewards of hospitality and goodness.
An excellent way to acquaint youngsters with a number of classical heroes and evil-doers, A Wonder Book will enchant readers of all ages.

The Scarlet Letter (Collins Classics)

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics.
'Ah, but let her cover the mark as she will, the pang of it will be always in her heart.'
A tale of sin, punishment and atonement, The Scarlet Letter exposes the moral rigidity of a 17th-Century Puritan New England community when faced with the illegitimate child of a young mother. Regarded as the first real heroine of American fiction, it is Hester Prynne's strength of character that resonates with the reader when her harsh sentence is cast. It is in her refusal to reveal the identity of the father in the face of her accusers that Hawthorne champions his heroine and berates the weakness of Society for attacking the innocent.

Mosses from an Old Manse (Modern Library Classics)

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Mosses from an Old Manse is Nathaniel Hawthorne’s second story collection, first published in 1846 in two volumes and featuring sketches and tales written over a span of more than twenty years, including such classics as “Young Goodman Brown,” “The Birthmark,” and “Rappaccini’s Daughter.” Herman Melville deemed Hawthorne the American Shakespeare, and Henry James wrote that his early tales possess “the element of simple genius, the quality of imagination. That is the real charm of Hawthorne’s writing—this purity and spontaneity and naturalness of fancy.”

The Scarlet Letter: A Romance (Vintage Classics)

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s masterpiece, an iconic fable of guilt and redemption set in Puritan Massachusetts, has long been considered one of the greatest American novels.

The story of Hester Prynne—found out in adultery, pilloried by her Puritan community, and abandoned, in different ways, by both her partner in sin and her vengeance-seeking husband—possesses a reality heightened by Hawthorne’s sympathy and his unmixed devotion to his supposedly fallen but fundamentally innocent heroine. The Scarlet Letter rightly deserves its stature as the first great novel written by an American, a work of moral force and narrative power that announced a literature equal to any in the world.

The Scarlet Letter: A Library of America Paperback Classic

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Set within the richly imagined confines of Puritan Boston, The Scarlet Letter is Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic tale of the social consequences of adultery and the subversive force of personal desire in a strict religious community. The transgression of Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale, the innate lawlessness of their illegitimate child, Pearl, and the torturous jealousy of the husband Roger Chillingworth trigger a provocative drama of sin and suffering, repentance and revenge.

“Beautiful, admirable, extraordinary… it has the inexhaustible charm and mystery of great works of art.” —Henry James

The Blithedale Romance: A Norton Critical Edition (Norton Critical Editions)

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

This new Norton Critical Edition of Hawthorne’s innovative 1852 novel helps readers navigate and appreciate its elusive plot, powerful characters, and maddening narrator. This Norton Critical Edition of The Blithedale Romance is based on the Centenary Edition of the Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, widely considered the best available edition. It is accompanied by explanatory annotations to help readers with Hawthorne’s many historical and literary references as well as with other possible sources of difficulty in the text.

“Contexts” is thematically organized and includes a rich and varied selection of materials, both public and private, focusing on Hawthorne’s inspirations for the novel. Included are letters, excerpts from journals, published accounts of Brook Farm and the growth of antebellum social reform, Hawthorne’s letters to Sophia Peabody and Louisa Hawthorne about his first days at Brook Farm, and later letters describing his growing reservations about and decision to leave the utopian community. The Blithedale Romance raises interesting questions about the role of women, the popularity of mesmerism, and the growth of cities in mid-nineteenth-century America. Margaret Fuller, Charles Baudelaire, and Hawthorne, among others, provide invaluable insight.

“Criticism” begins with major contemporary reviews by Herman Melville, William B. Pike, George S. Hillard, James T. Fields, Henry Fothergill Chorley, and others that suggest The Blithedale Romance’s initial reception. “Selections from Classic Studies” reprints key excerpts from influential essays published through the 1970s, including those by Henry James, D. H. Lawrence, Irving Howe, and James McIntosh.

“Recent Criticism” collects a striking range of scholarly interpretation by Nina Baym, Joel Pfister, Gillian Brown, Richard H. Brodhead, Lauren Berlant, Russ Castronovo, Robert S. Levine, and Richard H. Millington.

A Chronology and a Selected Bibliography are also included.

The House of the Seven Gables (Norton Critical Editions)

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

This all-new edition of Hawthorne’s celebrated 1851 novel is based on The Ohio State University Press’s Centenary Edition of the Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne. It is accompanied by thorough explanatory annotations and an insightful introduction to the novel and antebellum culture by Robert S. Levine.

"Contexts" brings together a generous selection of primary materials intended to provide readers with background on the novel’s central themes. Historical documents include accounts of Salem’s history by Thomas Maule, Robert Calef, Joseph B. Felt, and Charles W. Upham, which Hawthorne drew on for The House of the Seven Gables. The importance of the house in antebellum America―as a manifestation of the body, a site of genealogical history, and a symbol of the republic’s middle class―is explored through the diverse writings of William Andrus Alcott, Edgar Allan Poe, and J. H. Agnew, among others. The impact of technological developments on the novel, especially of daguerreotypy, is considered through the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Gustave de Beaumont, and Alexis de Tocqueville, among others. Also included are two of Hawthorne’s literary sketches―"Alice Doane’s Appeal" and "The Old Apple Dealer"―that demonstrate the continuity of Hawthorne’s style, from his earlier periodical writing to his later career as a novelist.

"Criticism" provides a comprehensive overview of the critical commentary on the novel from its publication to the present. Among the twenty-seven critics represented are Herman Melville, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Henry James, Nina Baym, Eric Sundquist, Richard H. Millington, Alan Trachtenberg, Amy Schrager Lang, and Christopher Castiglia.

A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included.

The Scarlet Letter Complete, Authoritative Text with Biographical Background and Critical History Plus Essays from Five Contemporary Critical Perspectives with Introductions and Bibliographies

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Adopted at more than 1,000 colleges and universities, Bedford/St. Martin's innovative Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism series has introduced more than a quarter of a million students to literary theory and earned enthusiastic praise nationwide. Along with an authoritative text of a major literary work, each volume presents critical essays, selected or prepared especially for students, that approach the work from several contemporary critical perspectives, such as gender criticism and cultural studies. Each essay is accompanied by an introduction (with bibliography) to the history, principles, and practice of its critical perspective. Every volume also surveys the biographical, historical, and critical contexts of the literary work and concludes with a glossary of critical terms. New editions reprint cultural documents that contextualize the literary works and feature essays that show how critical perspectives can be combined.

The Scarlet Letter (Masterpiece Library Edition)

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The finely embroidered letter ''A'' on Hester Prynne's breast is a mark of adultery. In isolation, she faces questions of sin, forgiveness, and redemption. But does she face them alone?

• Rediscover Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic in this elegant Masterpiece Library Edition.
• Deluxe, durably bound keepsake volume.
• Embossed covers with iridescent highlighting.
• Reinforced cloth quarter-binding.
• Paper is acid-free and of archival quality.
• Cream-color pages with font, type size, and line spacing chosen for comfortable reading.
• Ribbon bookmark.
• A must for any library.
• Dimensions: 6-1/2'' wide x 9-1/4'' high.
• 264 pages.

Nathaniel Hawthorne's (1804-1864) darkly romantic Scarlet Letter, published in 1850, features one of American literature's first strong, self-reliant female characters. It was an immediate success.

The Scarlet Letter American Classics Edition A Novel

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

One of the Library of Congress's "Books That Shaped America"

One of The Guardian's 100 Best Novels in English

"A perfect work of the American imagination."--D.H. Lawrence

In celebration of the 250th anniversary of the United States, HarperCollins is proud to present this library of American classics drawn from our storied catalog. A groundbreaking tale of injustice and perseverance that grapples with the founding history of this country, Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter tells the tale of one woman's dignity in the face of persecution, the threat she poses to Puritan power, and the desperate lengths people will reach to maintain the status quo.

A tale of sin, punishment and atonement, The Scarlet Letter exposes the moral rigidity of a 17th-Century Puritan New England community when faced with a "fallen" young mother and her illegitimate daughter. Forced to wear the scarlet "A" after committing adultery, Hester Prynne lives on the outskirts of society. Visited only by the Reverend Dimmesdale and watched over by Roger Chillingworth, she is both at the mercy of and defiantly against the immutable value system that shapes her fate and that of her child. Regarded as the first real heroine of American fiction, it is Hester Prynne's strength of character that Hawthorne champions, and that has inspired feminist literature for the nearly two centuries since the novel's publication.

Nathaniel Hawthorne: Parables, Fantasies, Fragments

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Here for the first time Hawthorne’s mind-bending short parables, fantasies, and fragments have been collected by an eminent Hawthorne scholar, culled from the author’s massive notebooks.

Nathaniel Hawthorne graduated from Bowdoin College in 1825 and returned home to Salem, Massachusetts. Over the next nearly twenty years, he mostly resided at the family home, with his mother and sisters, and worked on his writing in his second story bedroom-study. During that time, he kept a series of notebooks, now called the American Notebooks, which were an important source for some of the stories in his first two volumes—Twice-Told Tales (1837) and Mosses from an Old Manse (1845)—and even for some of the later novels.

Mainly, however, the American Notebooks served as a writer’s repository where Hawthorne could let his imagination wander freely, without having to worry about being called unconventional, weird, depressive, or even mad. Some of Hawthorne’s best and most experimental writing can be found in his journal fragments, none of which are more than a paragraph, and the majority are simply a sentence or two.

This remarkable new book extracts approximately 9,000 words of fragments from the over 800,000 words of Hawthorne’s published American, English, French, and Italian notebooks to reveal, for the first time, Hawthorne as a radical literary experimenter and proto-modernist.

"To have one event operate in several places—as, for example, if a man’s head were to be cut off in the town, men’s heads to drop off in several other towns."

"Little gnomes dwelling in hollow teeth; they find a tooth that has been plugged with gold; and it serves them as a gold mine."

The Scarlet Letter and Other Writings Authoritative Texts, Contexts, Criticism

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

An Alternate Cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

Hailed by Henry James as "the finest piece of imaginative writing yet put forth in the country, " Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter" reaches to our nation's historical and moral roots for the material of great tragedy. Set in an early New England colony, the novel shows the terrible impact a single, passionate act has on the lives of three members of the community: the defiant Hester Prynne; the fiery, tortured Reverend Dimmesdale; and the obsessed, vengeful Chillingworth. With "The Scarlet Letter," Hawthorne became the first American novelist to forge from our Puritan heritage a universal classic, a masterful exploration of humanity's unending struggle with sin, guilt and pride.

The Scarlet Letter - Second Edition A Romance

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Hawthorne’s story of the disgraced Hester Prynne (who must wear a scarlet “A” as the mark of her adultery), of her illegitimate child, Pearl, and of the righteous minister Arthur Dimmesdale continues to resonate with modern readers. Set in mid-seventeenth-century Boston, this powerful tale of passion, Puritanism, and revenge is one of the foremost classics of American literature.

This Broadview edition contains a selection of historical documents that include Hawthorne’s writings on Puritanism, the historical sources of the story, and contemporary reviews of the novel. New to the second edition are an updated critical introduction and bibliography and, in the appendices, additional writings by Margaret Fuller, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Henry James, and William Dean Howells.