Nathaniel Hawthorne

In seventeenth-century Boston, Hester Prynne shoulders the scorn of her fellow Puritan townsfolk for bearing a child out of wedlock. For her refusal to name the father of her daughter Pearl, Hester is made to wear a scarlet 'A' stitched conspicuously upon her dress. But though she bears the stigma of the shame her peers would confer upon her, others feel the guilt for her transgression more acutely--notably the pious Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, the...

First published in 1852, "The Blithedale Romance" is the third of Nathaniel Hawthorne's romantic novels. Set in the utopian communal farm called Blithedale in the 1840's, the novel tells the story of four inhabitants of the commune: Hollingsworth, a misogynist philanthropist obsessed with turning Blithedale into a colony for the reformation of criminals; Zenobia, a passionate feminist; Priscilla, a mysterious lady with a hidden agenda who turns out...

Hawthorne's tale about the brooding hold of the past over the present is a complex one, twisting and turning its way back through many generations of a venerable New England family, one of whose members was accused of witchcraft in 17th century Salem. More than 200 years later, we meet the family in its decaying, gabled mansion, still haunted by the presence of dead ancestors: Hepzibah, an elderly gentlewoman fallen on had times; her ineffectual brother,...

A gloomy New England mansion provides the setting for this classic exploration of ancestral guilt and its expiation through the love and goodwill of succeeding generations. Nathaniel Hawthorne drew inspiration for this story of an immorally obtained property from the role his forebears played in the 17th-century Salem witch trials. Built over an unquiet grave, the House of the Seven Gables carries a dying man's curse that blights the lives of its...

The Library of America presents in one giftable collection all 5 of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s world-famous novels—including The House of the Seven Gables and The Scarlet Letter.
Written in a richly suggestive style that seems remarkably contemporary, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novels permeated by his own history as well as America’s.
In The House of the Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne alludes to...

King, Midas's fondest wish, to have everything he touches turn to gold, backfires.

Short story written by famous American novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne.