Selected Tales and Sketches (Penguin Classics) [Mass Market Paperback]

Nathaniel Hawthorne (Author)

Book Description

Series: Penguin Classics | Publication Date: April 29, 2008

This book presents 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, and, 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.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

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

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Classics (April 29, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 014039057X
• ISBN-13: 978-0140390575
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.9 x 7.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #515,937 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars excellent selection, excellent introduction, October 28, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Selected Tales and Sketches (Penguin Classics) (Mass Market Paperback)

Hawthorne was, of course, one of (if not *the*) most important writers of 19th Century America and this edition demonstrates why. The level of engagement Hawthorne had with early America, the level of detail in his texts, and the level of scholarship advanced by the editor, demonstrate why Hawthorne is, inded, one of our contemporaries. Nobody can consider him- or herself "knowledgeable" about American literary history or American literature without reading "Young Goodman Brown," "My Kinsaman, Major Molineux," "The Minister's Black Veil," or "The May-Pole of Merry-Mount": these tales engage, variously, in themes of religiosity, national identity or formation, and the desire to re-write American-ness. indeed, these tales, which later influenced writers as disparate as Herman Melville, Henry James and Gertrude Stein, provide the very fabric of "American" literature. Although we have all been beaten over the head by Hawthorne in High School (if not college), an errand into his wilderness is, nonetheless, rewarding, fascinating, and enlightening: Colacurcio's editing and attention to detail (much like the subject of the book!) makes the volume accessible and rewarding.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars For those who love gloom and doom and complex emotions, October 31, 2005

By 

Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Selected Tales and Sketches (Penguin Classics) (Mass Market Paperback)

This volume contains Hawthorne's most well- known stories,among them "Young Goodman Brown" " The Birthmark" " The Hollow of Two Hills" "Ethan Brand."
They are written with that complicated, gloomy,Gothic, haunting, somehow discomfiting Hawthorne style. They bear them some sense of predestination, and irrevocable doom, a sense of sin and its punishment.
They have that kind of unique psychological penetration which marks Hawthorne's genius.
I can never say I loved reading these stories, really enjoyed this work. But always sensed they had a deep meaning and real value.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nathaniel Hawthorne's Excellent Short Stories deal with sin and sadness, deceit and madness, February 5, 2008

By 

C. M Mills "Michael Mills" (Knoxville Tennessee) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Selected Tales and Sketches (Penguin Classics) (Mass Market Paperback)

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) is best known for his classic American novels "Scarlet Letter", "The Blithedale Romance," "The House of Seven Gables" and "The Marble Faun." What you may not know is that he was also a short story author of genius. The stories in this Penguin edition are culled from several of his collections. They were written in the 1830s when the struggling author was seeking to make a living from his pen. Many of them suggest the major themes of his novels. Such stories as "The Minister's Black Veil", "Egoism or The Bosom Serpent" deal with the Calvinistic wrestling with sin and deception prevalent in the New England milieu which gave birth to the Salem Mass. born author. The first mention of a woman forced to wear a scarlet letter pronouncing her adultery with a large letter "A" is found in the tale "Endicott's Red
Cross." Tales like "My Cousin Major Molineaux" are ironical in a flowing style making good use of descriptive prose and first person narration.
Here you will find major stories such as:
Young Goodman Brown-the story of a young Puritan man who attends a devil's worship service in the forest at which many of the town's pillars of propriety are present. A classic tale of a fall from innocence in the American wilderness.
The May-Pole at Marymont is an indictment of legalistic Calvinist faith as all joy is erased from the human heart. Hawthorne wed one of the famed Peabody sisters who were influential in liberal Unitarian and Transcendalists circles.
The Celestial Railroad takes us on a wild ride to hell using images taken from John Bunyan's seventeenth century religious classic of Puritan thought: "The Pilgrim's Progress."
Rappaccini's Daugher is the story of a mad scientist who poisons his daughter with his potions making her glance or touch fatal to plants and animals.
Ethan Brand is a Faustian tale of a man who spends his fruitless life in quest of discovering the unforgiven sin.
In these 31 stories there is a festschrift of literary joy for all those who seek to know the mind of a brilliant American author whose short stories are in the top rank. The only element missing is humor.