Synopses & Reviews
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 romancesThe House of Seven Gables, The Blithedale Romance, and The Marble Faunas 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 wholehis artistic rise, triumph, and sad declinecan find it in this collection.
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.
William C. Spengemann is the Hale Professor in Arts and Sciences and Professor of English Emeritus at Dartmouth College. He edited the Penguin Classics edition of Nineteenth-Century American Poetry.