Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) is now considered to be one the first great American fiction writers. Though he's known primarily as the author of long form classics such as the The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables, Hawthorne was also a prolific short story writer. It was through these "tales" as he liked to call them, that he developed common themes that would come to a rich fruition in the mature novels that formed his reputation. The stories collected for this volume represent key Hawthorne obsessions, such as his deep knowledge of New England history, his distaste for Puritan society, and a broader philosophical interest in man's sinful nature that pervades all of his work.
This volume includes the following tales:
- Young Goodman Brown (1835)
- Wakefield (1835)
- The Minister's Black Veil (1836)
- The Maypole of Merry Mount (1837)