This revised Norton Critical Edition brings together twenty-three of Hawthorne's tales in all their psychological and moral complexity. The Second Edition adds the early biographical sketch "Mrs. Hutchinson" as well as two tales, "The Wives of the Dead" and "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment." Each tale is[...]

The Scarlet Letter is an 1850 work of romantic fiction in a historical setting, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It is considered to be his masterpiece and most famous work. Set in 17th-century Puritan Boston, it tells the story of Hester Prynne, who gives birth after committing adultery and struggle[...]

In the final years of the seventeenth century in a small New England town, the venerable Colonel Pyncheon decides to erect a ponderously oak-framed and spacious family mansion. It occupies the spot where Matthew Maule, 'an obscure man', had lived in a log hut, until his execution for witchcraft. Fro[...]

This unparalleled edition of Hawthorne's most widely-read novel is based on the 1850 third edition. A selection of contextual material includes five of Hawthorne's stories that are closely related to The Scarlet Letter, as well as his most relevant letters and notebook entries and his campaign biogr[...]

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In The Marble Faun (1860), three young Americans discover artistic and moral freedom in Rome, flourishing among Europeans and devastating one another with love. Hawthorne's innovative foray into the influence of European thought on American culture is a timeless study of the loss of innocence an[...]

This is the "Penguin English Library Edition" of "The Scarlet Letter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne. 'Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, - stern and wild ones, - and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss'. Fiercely romantic and hugely influential, "The Scarlet Letter" is t[...]

This is 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 [...]

'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 must wear a scarlet 'A' upon her breast, the sin of adultery visible to all. Under an assumed name her husband begins his s[...]

Accompanied by explanatory annotations, this edition of The Blithedale Romance (1852) is based on the Centenary Edition of the Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne. "Contexts" contains Hawthorne's letters, notebook entries and memoirs recreating life at the utopian community, Brook Farm. Other writers bring[...]

A passionate young woman, her cowardly lover, and her aging, vengeful husband 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 tragic novel [...]