Book Description

“The style of Hawthorne is purity itself. His tone is singularly effective-wild, plaintive, thoughtful, and in full accordance with his themes.”- Edgar Allan Poe “To this little book we would say ‘Live ever, sweet, sweet book.’ It comes from the hand of a man of genius.”-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Twice-Told Tales is a spectacularly rich collection of thirty-nine penetrating stories. With a rare purity of style, these tales chronicle both familiar life and haunted specters through a lens of subtle mysticism and deep melancholy. The title is a nod to Shakespeare’s line “Life is a tedious as a twice-told tale/Vexing the ear of a drowsy man.”; it furthermore is Hawthorne’s acknowledgment that these stories all had been previously published in various magazines and newspapers of the day. Never one to shy from exploring themes of darkness and morality, these stories beg for repeated readings in order to fully grasp their true richness; yet, there is a sheer enjoyment in the subtle, truly imaginative beauty in each one. Amongst this collection are the tales “The Ambitious Guest,” “The Minister’s Black Veil,” “The May-Pole of Merry Mount,” “The Hollow of Three Hills,” “The Haunted Mind,” and “Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment” which was adapted into the 1963 Horror Film starring Vincent Price.