About this title: 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 ...
read more
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Description: Fair. No dust jacket as issued. 627 p. Rinehart Editions, 33. Audience: General/trade; General/trade. Soiling on the edge and some on the covers. Small tear top of the spine. Pages have turned off color. No marks that I noticed. read more
Description: Poor. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. 1970 Trade PB. Holt, Rhinehart, & Winston. 627 pgs. Previous owner name first page. Previous book store stamp first page and barcode sticker back cover. Some reader notations. Cover with heavy shelf wear/edg wear. Corners bumped and creased. Light soiling. Spine crease from opening. Binding solid. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Rinehart & Company
Date Published: 1956
Description: Good. -5th Printing--410 pgs. Interior-Nice overall condition. The soft cover has light signs of aging. -Publish Place: New York-Size: 12mo-over 6¾"-7¾" tall. read more
Description: Good. Considerable cover wear and tear with creasing and scuffing to edges. Age toning. Previous owner's name on page edges. GoodwillnyBooks is committed to providing each customer with the highest standard of customer service. You may return new items within 30 days of delivery for a full refund. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Rinehart & Co
Date Published: 1957
Description: Good. Good paperback. Previous owner's name on end paper and markings on some pages. pages are slightly age tanned. Covers show edge wear with creasing and rubbing.; 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed! Free Delivery Confirmation! Ships same or next business day! read more
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Fair. Purchasing this item supports Pierce County libraries. Thriftbooks and PCL have partnered to help raise additional funds for the library system. Ex-Library book-will contain library markings. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Good. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Good. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
"Some of the themes get repetitive if you read the entire book at once, and I also got tired of the feeble female protagonists, but Hawthorne has a way with words."
"It's unfortunate that most of the work collected in Hawthorne's Short Stories fails to live up to the towering achievement that is "Young Goodman Brown," though many do a commendable job when taken on their own terms. The indelible "Ethan Brand" is fantastic, as is "Egotism; or, The Bosom Serpent," but there's an awful lot of filler here, including one too many allegorical attacks on the Transcendentalists.
Hawthorne has a strange way of writing third-person limited narratives. Many begin with a tiresome and unnecessary throat-clearing, and he seems intent on convincing the reader that these stories have been verbally passed on to him. We have glimpses into the inner lives and emotions of the characters only sometimes, and at other times he simply says that his recollection is fuzzy, or that we can never know that portion of the story. It's not a cop-out, exactly, because the device's purpose is to grant the stories verisimilitude, though it generally doesn't work. If it's a device used largely in the mid-nineteenth century (I've not read enough of this era to know for certain), then it hasn't aged well.
What Hawthorne does well, obviously, is lending his stories the weight of history and allowing them a proper amount of mystery, so that they function both as "regular" stories and as allegories as well. Don't let Newton Arvin's otherwise perceptive introduction fool you - calling these stories allegorical isn't reductive, it's accurate. There are witches here, and devils seem to be at work often, either manifesting themselves physically or in the hearts of men. Ghosts wander and appear often enough to make the everyday seem surreal, and Hawthorne's apparent disdain for science (see "The Birthmark" or "Rappaccini's Daughter") makes progress seem like an empty human vanity. This is what I love about Hawthorne. The themes of the stories are universal (they're downright primordial) and that's what grants them the longevity they've so long enjoyed. I only wish the quality were spread more evenly throughout this collection, and that his gift for creating a real character matched his gift for memorably communicating a Big Idea.
Oh, and who the hell would publish a collection of Hawthorne's best stories and not include "My Kinsman, Major Molineaux"?"
"There is something about Hawthorne's stories that leave the reader so unsettled, the stories themselves being unsettled. The Artist of the Beautiful, Rappaccini's Daughter, The Birthmark, Roger Malvin's Burial - all are so carefully rendered, and somewhat formal, but there is an undercurrent of darkness and restriction, unbridled chaos so close to the surface, yet never addressed directly. The stories I've listed appealed to me the most, particularly The Birthmark, a story touching on female beauty and the pursuit of happiness, and how some of us are never satisfied. Like characters in Poe, Hawthorne's creations are the engineers of their own demise. Yet, I feel that with Hawthorne, he is more reluctant to have them fall, and this conflict arises at the intersection between individual obsessions or pursuits, and the communal good. Isn't the Artist of the Beautiful Hawthorne himself? And yet, the artist is doomed. Perhaps these are cautionary tales. And just as Hawthorne changed his name to distance himself from his Salem witch trial judge ancestors, his stories retain an air of judgment and law. Maybe, as his work illustrates, you can't escape your past...How beautiful the garden in Rappaccini's Daughter, or Owen Warland's mechanical butterfly fluttering around the sceptics, but does it rival nature? Perhaps the artist is good as long as he does not try to rival God, and maybe that is what Hawthorne is trying to do, he is showing that he knows his boundaries."
"One of the first books I read in college. It is one that I've read countless times since. There are so many great short stories here that I can't pick one as a favorite. Much of Hawthorne's work takes place during early American history, using the Puritan faith as a model to build many of his characters. All of the stories included take you to that time with page-turning suspense that keeps you engrossed for hours."
We guarantee every item's condition, as described on Alibris. If you are not satisfied that an item is as described, return your purchase for a refund.
rating
