The Hawthorne Treasury

Book excerpt: The Hawthorne Treasury is the most comprehensive selection, available in one volume, of the works of one of America's great storytellers. Beginning with Fanshawe (1828), a work published privately and anonymously, Nathaniel Hawthorne's fiction helped shape the course of American literature. Both Poe and Melville lavished praise on his next books, Twice-Told Tales and Mosses from an Old Manse, collections that helped establish the short story as an important American literary genre. With the publication of The Scarlet Letter in 1850, Hawthorne's reputation was secure. Set in the harsh Puritan community of seventeenth-century Boston, this famous tale of an adulterous entanglement gave American literature its first heroine, Hester Prynne. D. H. Lawrence called The Scarlet Letter "one of the greatest allegories in all literature." The House of the Seven Gables, a novel set in a mansion haunted by a centuries-old curse, followed a year later. Also included in this volume are The Blithedale Romance, the depiction of a utopian community that cannot survive the passions of its members; The Marble Faun, Hawthorne's last novel, inspired by his yearlong stay in Italy; and tales from The Snow-Image, his final collection of short stories. Hawthorne's themes of alienation, guilt, and isolation ensure that he remains pertinent, and his writing is infused with a distinct sense of place. As Henry James wrote, "He offers the most vivid reflection of New England life that has found its way into our literature." All of his virtues are abundantly demonstrated in this most substantial representation of his work.