Selected Tales and Sketches by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Selected Tales and Sketches by Nathaniel Hawthorne

A collection of short fiction from a writer who helped to shape the course of American literature, Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Selected Tales and Sketches" is introduced by Michael J. Colacurcio in "Penguin Classics". 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. 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. Collected here are stories such as "Young Goodman Brown", in which a young Puritan man is haunted by a vision of satanic rituals, gradually losing his faith; "The Haunted Mind", which contemplates the surreal nature of dreams as a gateway to supernatural realms; "Ethan Brand", an eerie meditation on the nature of sin; and "The Minister's Black Veil", in which a small-town clergyman undergoes a frightening transformation. Written from the 1820s-to the 1850s, 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 introduction, they are themes that are now deeply embedded in the American literary tradition. Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-64) was born in Salem, Massachusetts. In 1825 he graduated from Bowdoin College, Maine, and returned to Salem determined to become a writer. He joined Brook Farm, a utopian experiment in communal living, before marrying in 1842. His writing had already secured some success with his "Twice-Told Tales", but it was the publication of "The Scarlet Letter in 1850" that brought him immediate recognition, followed a year later by "The House of the Seven Gables". If you enjoyed "Selected Tales" and "Sketches", you might like Edgar Allen Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Writings", also available in "Penguin Classics".

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) was born in Salem, Massachusetts, and is best known today for his enigmatic tales and the novel The Scarlet Letter.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780140390575
ISBN 10	014039057X
Title	Selected Tales and Sketches
Author	Nathaniel Hawthorne
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Penguin Books Ltd
Year published	1987-03-03
Number of pages	480
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable