Nathaniel Hawthorne

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...

"Young Goodman Brown" is a short story published in 1835 by American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne. The story takes place in 17th century Puritan New England. In a symbolic fashion, the story follows Young Goodman Brown's journey into self-scrutiny, which results in his loss of virtue and belief. --from Wikipedia

"Rappaccini's Daughter" is a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne first published in the December 1844 issue of The United States Magazine and Democratic Review, and later in the 1846 collection Mosses from an Old Manse. It is about Giacomo Rappaccini, a medical researcher in medieval Padua who grows a garden of poisonous plants. He brings up his daughter to tend the plants, and she becomes resistant to the poisons, but in the process she herself becomes...

In this short story, Hawthorne sets the scene in a rural valley located in an unnamed U.S. state that resembles New Hampshire. A rock formation in a nearby notch is imagined, by many locals and visitors, to resemble the shape and features of a human face. - From Wikipedia

The portrait of a faded, melancholy man who sells gingerbread and apples at the local train station. Hawthorne describes him in terms of negatives, of dim browns and faint shades of gray Even his melancholy is subdued, for he is unfortunate, but not that unfortunate.

In this vignette, first published in The Token (1831) when Hawthorne was twenty-seven years old, the narrator describes the places and people that he sees atop the steeple of an urban church: the countryside, the stately mansions, the busy wharf, the solitary young man, the two young ladies he encounters, and their father the prosperous merchant. The sun-filled clouds, with which his description begins, are soon succeeded by darker cousins, a thunderstorm,...

I have sometimes produced a singular and not unpleasing effect, so far as my own mind was concerned, by imagining a train of incidents in which the spirit and mechanism of the faëry legend should be combined with the characters and manners of familiar life. In the little tale which follows a subdued tinge of the wild and wonderful is thrown over a sketch of New England personages and scenery, yet, it is hoped, without entirely obliterating the sober...

Nathaniel Hawthorne, the great American author, cunningly, informatively, and entertainingly recounts several stories in American history. each story is told by a grandfather to his grandchildren. (Goodreads)

DAFFYDOWNDILLY was so called because in his nature he resembled a flower, and loved to do only what was beautiful and agreeable, and took no delight in labor of any kind.

Sylvia Etherege was an orphan girl, who had spent her life, till within a few months past, under the guardianship, and in the secluded dwelling, of an old bachelor uncle. While yet in her cradle, she had been the destined bride of a cousin, who was no less passive in the betrothal than herself.