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Twenty-four of the best short stories by one of the early masters of the form, in the definitive collection edited by acclaimed scholar Newton Arvin.

Table of Contents

Twice-Told Tales

The Gray Champion
The Minister's Black Veil
The May-Pole of Merry Mount
The Gentle Boy
Wakefield
The Great Carbuncle
The Prophetic Pictures
Dr. Heidegger's Experiment
Lady Eleanore's Mantle
Old Esther Dudley
The Ambitious Guest
The White Old Maid
Peter Goldthwaite's Treasure
Endicott and the Red Cross


Mosses from an Old Manse

The Birthmark
Young Goodman Brown
Rappaccini's Daughter
The Celestial Railroad
Feathertop: A Moralized Legend
Egotism; Or, the Bosom Serpent
The Christmas Banquet
Drowne's Wooden Image
Earth's Holocaust
The Artist of the Beautiful


The Snow Image

The Great Stone Face
Ethan Brand
The Wives of the Dead


Tales and Sketches

The Antique Ring
Alice Doane's Appeal

About the Author

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1805-64) was an American novelist and short-story writer. He was born in Salem, Massachusetts, and graduated from Bowdoin College. His first novel, Fanshawe, was published anonymously in 1828, followed by several collections of short stories, including Twice-Told Tales and Mosses from an Old Manse. His later novels include The Scarlet Letter, The House of Seven Gables, The Blithedale Romance, and The Marble Faun.

Newton Arvin (1900-63) was a literary critic and professor at Smith College known for his influential writings about nineteenth-century American literature. He is the author of biographies of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Walt Whitman, and his biography of Herman Melville won the National Book Award in 1951.