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On July 28, 1851, Nathaniel Hawthorne's wife left their house in Western Massachusetts to visit relatives. Hawthorne and his five-year-old son Julian stayed behind. How father and son got on together for the next three weeks is the subject of Twenty Days with Julian & Little Bunny, by Papa, a tender and funny extract from Hawthorne's notebooks, perhaps one of the earliest accounts in literature of a father caring for a young child.

Each day starts early and will be given over to swimming and skipping stones, berry picking and subduing armies of thistles. At one point Mr. Herman Melville comes over to enjoy a late night discussion of eternity over cigars.

With an introduction by Paul Auster, this delightful true-life story by a great American writer emerges from obscurity to shine a delightful light upon family life -- then and now. The collection also includes Hawthorne's short stories "Young Goodman Brown," "The Minister's Black Veil" and "Rappaccini's Daughter."

Read by James Naughton.

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Worthy of Your Listening Time
Solitude was his natural element, says Paul Auster (author) in the one hour introduction,Hawthorne at Home, that gives tribute to Hawthorne's writing life as well as a glimpse into his family and friendship with Herman Melville. The emphasis though is not on the writer of The Scarlet Letter or The House of the Seven Gables but on the more personal side witnessed within his journals. This Hawthorne collection features journal writings titled Twenty Days with Julian and Little Bunny, by Papa and three short stories: Young Goodman Brown, The Minister's Black Veil and Rappaccini's Daughter.

Auster's voice is relaxed, honest and comfortable to listen to as he continues with Twenty Days, reading Hawthorne's "account of a man taking care of his child by himself." Hawthorne wrote about his interactions and observations of his five year old son Julian during a three week period in 1851 while his wife and daughter were away visiting. Auster says the notebook was for Hawthorne's wife Sophia so she could read about what they did while she was away.

Hawthorne's reflections are almost reminiscent of Michael Keaton in Mr. Mom. They are light, loving and believable. In-depth descriptions of their activities, meetings, power struggles, walks and meals have a familiar and endearing quality to them. Children in the mid 1800's are surprisingly similar with children of today. Amusing.

His journal is full of scenic descriptions, character studies and lessons to Julian. Bits of Hawthorne's personality bleed into the diary. Like his penchant for paranoia shown by his need to deliver a letter to the post himself. He wrote a letter to Phoebe (nickname for his wife Sophia) and handed it over to a visitor who was also going to post. He later wished he hadn't and promised to post another himself because there was no guarantee whether it would be posted. Hawthorne's love of nature is also apparent in his recurring descriptions of their daily walks.

Following Hawthorne's diary entries are three strange, dark stories narrated by James Naughton (actor). I was left wondering why they were compiled with the light cheery reflections of Hawthorne's journal. The transition from one reader to another was also unnerving and awkward.

Young Goodman Brown begins with a young married man (Goodman Brown) saying goodbye to his new bride, Faith, despite her begging him not to go. At the beginning of his journey he meets up with a strange man and they walk along a wilderness path (something Nathanial did daily according to Twenty Days). The path seems to be a metaphor for evil. The old man talks about knowing Goodman's father and grandfather and his relationship to the other villagers. There are a few play on words like his wife's name is Faith and at one point he screams, "I have lost my Faith!" having obvious double meaning. If it's yet not obvious to you what this story is about it is because it wasn't clear to me either but I gather it has something to do with one man's struggle with his conscious good and evil both real and imagined.

The Minister's Black Veil is also full of metaphors. Again we see the involvement of the townspeople in this story that's supposed to be a parody. One day Mr. Hopper, a minister, walks about town with a black veil covering his eyes but his mouth and chin remain exposed. All want to know why. The town folk are upset by this change in their friendly minister who even wears the veil during his service causing the folks to read more into his sermon than usual. A man they've known well has suddenly become a man they feel they don't know at all. During the story he attends a funeral, church service and wedding. It's an interesting moral tale.

Rappaccini's Daughter is equally as dark. A bored young, Italian writer named Giovanni becomes distracted by a luscious garden and fountain outside the window of the room he rents and most importantly the daughter of the plants' caretaker, Beatrice. This is a strange tale about a girl raised in seclusion by her scientist father among poisonous plants and who has become a poison herself. Slow to start but has a twisted unsuspecting outcome.

I thoroughly enjoyed Hawthorne's Twenty Day's Diary and was slow to warm up to the short stories mostly because I was expecting them to have the same flair as the journal. Both create different moods but are worthy of your listening time.

Review Originally Posted at http://www.linearreflections.com ... Read more

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Sequel to A Wonder Book for Girls and Boys by master storyteller Nathaniel Hawthorne. Six more Greek myths retold by the fictional Eustace Bright to his enthusiastic throng of young listeners, namely The Minotaur, The Pygmies, The Dragon's Teeth, Circe's Palace, The Pomegranate Seeds, and The Golden Fleece. Attractively illustrated by Willy Pogany. Suitable for ages 9 and up. ... Read more

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In addition to the text of the first edition of the novel, the New Riverside Edition of The Scarlet Letter contains a wide variety of contextual materials and scholarly essays. "Contexts" includes additional writings and letters by Hawthorne, as well as essays on the New England sources of the novel and the novel's publication history. "Criticism" contains early reviews of the novel and critical readings from the 19th century (such as an excerpt from Henry James' book Hawthorne) to the present.

Customer Reviews (1)

A Pearl in the messianic Jerusalem
This novel has become more than a classic. It is a myth, a cult. To cover this romance properly we would have to explore so many levels and details that thousands of pages would not be enough. I will concentrate on the child, Pearl. We must keep in mind that the twelve gates of the messianic Jerusalem in the Book of Revelation are twelve pearls. Hence the child is the gate to this messianic Jerusalem that the Puritans pretended they were building in New England. This gives the fundamental meaning of the child in the book : it is a direct criticism of any puritan, moralistic, fundamentalistic we would say today, approach of religion. Especially since this Pearl will disappear at the end of the book and exist somewhere else. Boston was not the messianic Jerusalem the Puritans had in mind. The second element is that Pearl is seen as unchristian because she is born out of « fornication », « adultery », though in fact out of passion and love. This is clearly shown by the rejection this Pearl is forced to suffer along with her mother, as if this Pearl that should open onto the messianic Jerusalem and the trees of life that bear twelve crops of fruit a year and whose leaves are the cure for the pagans (Rev. 22:2) was opening on the wilderness, or at best the ocean since she lives on a peninsula. There is no cure in Boston for those who are not perfect according to the decrees of the Puritans. There is no forgiveness, no tolerance, no freedom either there. One essential Christian value is missing and it is love. Pearl is also the symbol of what must go along with forgiveness and love, which is repentance, but not the repentance that is imposed as a punishment onto the « sinner », but the repentance that comes from the soul, from God, from the heart. The book clearly shows that public - though here imposed - repentance is torture but a bearable torture that strengthens the victim of the punishment, whereas secret repentance is an unbearable self-inflicted torture that gnaws at the heart, the soul, and the body of the person who is refused the possibility of public repentance. And this is because there is no forgiveness in this society, no possibility for the sinner, no matter who he is and what position he holds, to be forgiven if he repairs the harm he has done, in this case if he marries the mother, since the husband of this mother has disappeared and did disappear two years before. Pearl becomes the symbol of this forgiveness at the very end of the novel, the being who is willing to forgive publicly in front of those who had refused to forgive for more than seven years. In other words Pearl becomes the signpost on the road to love and also some kind of angel or even archangel who shows the way to human salvation, and God's salvation is always on the side of repentance, reparation, forgiveness and love, never on the side of permanent or irreversible human punishment. In fact the only judge is God, the only one who has the power to judge, what's more to try, is God, and God has entrusted humanity with the mission to enable sinners to repent and be forgiven, not to punish, or even torture or execute. Pearl is thus the symbol of an open reading of the Gospels and in a way the signpost on the road to some better future for human beings on earth. This better future is definitely expressed by the post mortem contrition and repentance of Hester's first husband who adopts Pearl as his heiress, hence his own child. His repentance comes after seven years of vengeance, but it does come, and he is the only one to repent among the hostile people in Boston. If thus the sinners' child, Pearl, is redeemed at the end of the book and escapes the punishing puritans, it is because she represents light, sunshine, God's illumination. She is the star that should lead us on the way to the future on earth and beyond : forgiveness and love, and we all must respect love as a divine and sacred value that is stronger than any law, rule, habit or custom, and the lack if not the refusal of respect for love is the direst and ugliest sin a human being, a creature of God can commit. Hawthorne is the author that illuminates best the worst gothic context and produces a shiny romance with the darkest and bleakest material.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU
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In an ancient though not very populous settlementin a retired corner of one of the New England Statesarise the walls of a seminary of learningwhichfor the convenience of a nameshall be entitled ¿Harley College.¿ ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

The Pristine Wilderness As Gothic Cathedral
Nathaniel Hawthorne supposedly felt such shame at this novella, written while he was a relatively young person, that he refused to acknowledge it in his lifetime, and even burned every copy of it that he could get his hands on. Bad move! The truth is Fanshawe is well worth reading. It is exciting, boldly told, and it has a sweetness to it that isn't there in Hawthorne's later writings, however masterful they might be. Also the story Fanshawe tells is one that clearly arises from the lingering influence the Romantics had on young Hawthorne. Even the book's namesake and protagonist is a sort of fondly imagined stand-in for the bookish Hawthorne of his so recent school days. The setting for this straightforward Gothic adventure of kidnapping andrescue is the yet untamed American wilderness of the 1740's, which Hawthorne winsomely describes as a sort of vast, green, brooding cathedral of stone, water, sky, soil, air, and forest, filled with towering rocky hills and echoing mossy caves, free-flowing streams, and ancient trees. The countryside of his prose is a thing of stirring beauty, and his characters truly achieve a dimension few other writers would manage in a tale so brief. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the experience of reading Fanshawe, and was also surprised at how nicely it stays in my memory. Hawthorne's orphaned work is also one of his best, and I think it deserves five stars.

Modest Beginnings
I am a great fan of classic literature, but I can't say I enjoyed Hawthorne's "Fanshawe" too much.Though the reader can see the great writer at work, it seems that Hawthorne was experimenting with styles and character development.The storyline is good, characters developed to a decent extent, and there are the essential components of all of Hawthorne's later great works.Ellen, a lovable character is under care of her father's friend, a charming old doctor, who is himself childless.Two men vie for Ellen's attention, and their affections will soon be put to the test when a villain enters the scene, threatening Ellen's peaceful existence.

Though short and not one of Hawthorne's best works, "Fanshaw" nonetheless is a good story and a good beginning from a man who became one of the great literary masters.

Fanshaw: Hawthorne's First Romance
For Hawthorne folks, it's fun, as he stumbles about with all kinds of gothic folderol. He ordered the novel burned after having published it himself in 1828, but there are keys to his greater works: the pale deathly bachelor, the ruddy passionate fellow, the pale but feisty maiden, the dark woods around Bowdoin College in Maine (where the novel takes place), the flights and escapes and possibilities of rape.Great, it ain't, but it's fun and foreshadows Hawthorne's career in fiction.

Hawthorne Himself Underrated This
3 1/2 stars would probably be more accurate. I know that even Hawthorne himself didn't much care for this novel of his. But in my opinion, he sold himself short. To be sure, it's not exactly "The Scarlet Letter" or "House of the 7 Gables." Nevertheless, it does show the brewing genius of Hawthorne.

The story revolves around some fairly well developed characters. Dr. Melmouth is the guardian of Langton's daughter Ellen. We later learn that the at least moderately benevolent Melmouth has an interesting flaw. he devoted his life to study, but he is somewhat naive in the ways of the world. (He has lead too sheltered of a life.)

We also meet the rivals for Ellen (Fanshawe and Edward). they are interestingly different. Fanshawe is more benevolent. Edward seems more interested in proving himself a hero.

Fanshawe has an interesting conversation with the Angler, and we get the impression that Fanshawe does not like him. the questionable friendship between the Angler and Hue Crombie is drawn well. The Angler wants to run off with Ellen. (partially for her inheritance) and Hue Crombie does not like this. But the Angler is able to convince him to cooperate.

Well, Ellen is abducted by the Angler. Though Hawthorne does reminds us that the Angler is a human being. he had a sad childhood, and he came into the service of Ellen's father. He served Ellen's father the best he could, but Langton: "...shut the door of repentance against his erring protoge, and left him in a situation not less desperate than that from which he relieved him."

Well, fanshawe and Edward put aside their differences to save Ellen. though Fanshawe is the more altruistic one. In fact, Edward seems to resent help: "It was his wish to persue the chase on his own responsibility." Edward accepts the help of Ellen's father, but he is not overly happy about it.

Well, Ellen eventually starts to have 2nd thought about what she at least partially consented to and she tries to escape. it is in fact the under appreciated Fanshawe who comes to Ellen's rescue.

Here it is prevalent that Hawthonre himself detests the cliche romantic formula of having the 'typical Prince Charming' rescue the damsel in distress and living happily ever after: "The maiden must have been farblind than woman ever was...if the late events had not convinced herof Fanshawe's devoted attachment; and she saw Edward Walcott feeling superior..." Poor Fanshawe wishes Ellen well, and leaves her free to marry Edward.

Even though Hawthorne did not really like this book of his, it is really great. he gives us memorable characters, a 3d villain, and she shows his fierce style of attacking the typical romance formula.

Don't be so hard on yourself Mr. Hawthorne!

A Crucial Study
Most people know Hawthorne's 2nd novel "The Scarlet Letter" (1850). The only reason I was exposed to his first novel"Fanshawe" (1828) was that I majored in English. I think when weare only exposed to their selected best works, we fail to remember thateven the BEST writers like Marlowe and Shakespeare were human. And ashumans, NOT EVERY SINGLE THING they write can be a masterpiece. So why read"Fanshawe?" Well, this first novel shows us the greatness tocome. We are presented with memorable and chilling images. Ellen ismemorable as the typical damsel in distress. Fanshawe and Edward Walcottare captivating as the rivals for Ellen's love who put their differencesaside to save her. The Angler is captivating as a villain who offers someinteresting passages and is not quite a monster. And Hawthorne manages tospeed things up with a wild chase and bitter confrontation. To be sure,this does not represent Hawthorne's best efforts, but do we really know anauthor if we only read his best works? This novel helps us see thegreatness that was to come. ... Read more

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The collection of documents in this volume silhouettes the ebbs and crests of Hawthorne's literary reputation and the elevation of his first and best-known romance to the rank of masterpiece and classic. Among the early documents reprinted are contemporary news accounts of Hawthorne's dismissal from the Salem Custom House in June 1849, the publisher James T. Fields's anecdotal version of the book's composition history, and a generous sheaf of notices from both American and British newspapers upon its publication in March 1850. Prominent among modern critics whose essays appear are Neal Frank Doubleday, Darrel Abel, and Nina Baym. Also included is a selected bibliography of modern scholarship. ... Read more

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Abjuring the city for a pastoral life, a group of utopians set out to reform a dissipated America.But the group is a powerful mix of competing ambitions and its idealism finds little satisfaction in farmwork.Instead, of changing the world, the members of the Blithedale community individually pursue egotistical paths that ultimately lead to tragedy. Hawthorne's tale both mourns and satirizes a rural idyll not unlike that of nineteenth-century America at large. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (3)

The Great Stone Face
The book was in SHORTHAND!It was to be a gift for a very special person (who does not read shorthand)!What a disappointment.

an imagination of one's mind
I am much interested in teaching lessons for kids. There are too manybooks to teach knowledge, but hard to find any to teach wisdom. We, adults, sholud teach our children the abstract conceptions, such as happy,perseverence, love, imagination, wisdom, mercy etc, through books. I thinkthis book is really good because I can teach easily my children that youcan be what you think in your mind, what you will think in your mind, goodor bad. Introduce this book to your kids,and discuss the strength ofimagination. Thank you.

The book could have been better.
This book was unable to hold my interest. I thought the book was boring.This book had a good plot. The reason I was not to fond of the "TheGreat Stone Face" was because there wasn't much action. If you likeaction don't read this book, but if you like stories set in the EarlyAmerican times or legends this book would be great for you. This book wouldbe good for kids in sixth through tenth grade. I think the author did agood job on the "The Great Stone Face" and I would probably readanother one of his books. ... Read more

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The fragility-and the durability-of human life and art dominate this story of American expatriates in Italy in the mid-nineteenth century. Befriended by Donatello, a young Italian with the classical grace of the "Marble Faun," Miriam, Hilda, and Kenyon find their pursuit of art taking a sinister turn as Miriam's unhappy past precipitates the present into tragedy.

Hawthorne's 'International Novel' dramatizes the confrontation of the Old World and the New and the uncertain relationship between the 'authentic' and the 'fake' in life as in art.The author's evocative descriptions of classic sites made The Marble Faun a favorite guidebook to Rome for Victorian tourists, but this richly ambiguous symbolic romance is also the story of a murder, and a parable of the Fall of Man. As the characters find their civilized existence disrupted by the awful consequences of impulse, Hawthorne leads his readers to question the value of Art and Culture and addresses the great evolutionary debate which was beginning to shake Victorian society. ... Read more

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Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

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The first paperback edition to include full annotations of these twenty Hawthorne tales written between the 1830s and 50s, this volume contains the classic pieces "Young Goodman Brown," "The Maypole of Merry Mount," "The Birthmark," "The Celestial Railroad," and "Earth's Holocaust," as well as tales, such as "My Kinsman, Major Molineux," which represent Hawthorne's interest in the spiritual history of New England. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

The Way of the Transgressor is hard
Another great American puritannical author, Cormac McCarthy wrote in BLOOD MERIDIAN (his masterwork of 1985): "...when God made man the devil was at his elbow..."
Nathaniel Hawthorne was cut from the same sober, black cloth as McCarthy, and as deeply, obsessively fascinated and horrified by the power of darkness in the human heart.These magnificent short stories reveal Hawthorne's understanding of the innate warp in the human soul, and his profound distrust of those who would attempt to overcome or ignore that mortal knowledge.That is to say Hawthorne perceived that the durable core of Biblical wisdom as it concerns Mankind's wretched, Fallen soul had nothing to do with dogma, revelation, or even "Faith".Into this "existential" dilemma he was born over one hundred years before his time, and thus resembles many of the 19th century's deepest, most troubled skeptics.
At the core of this sad understanding as expressed in his art is Hawthorne's greatest & most heartbreaking tale, "Young Goodman Brown"--It is no less wrenching to feel the power of its bleak wisdom keenly once more today across the gulf of nearly eighteen decades...In the naivete & delusions of our technocentric Cyberfaith, we ignore its Hard Truth nonetheless, and increasingly, at our own peril.

In The High Puritan Style
The old social democratic literary critic and editor of "Dissent", Irving Howe, once noted that Mark Twain, and his post-Civil War works represented a dramatic break from the Euro-centric ante bellum literary establishment. And on this question I agree with him. As I do on his choice of Nathaniel Hawthorne as an exemplar of that tradition. Certainly his most famous work, "The Scarlet Letter", reflects that European influence, as do the collected short stories under review here.

As the reader, perhaps, knows Hawthorne made his living writing short stories for the women reader-oriented literary magazines of the day long before he wrote "The Scarlet Letter" and some of these have turned out to be classics of the early American Republic. Moreover, and this is one of his attractions for me, I know virtually every place where the action of the short stories takes place from the Merrymount May Day pole to the granite mountains of New Hampshire and beyond. More importantly, I know the weight, the dead weight of that grinding Puritan foundation that drove much of the early American experience here in New England. Hawthorne, in short, knows where the WASP-ish bodies are buried and is here to tell one and all the tales. Sometimes with pathos, sometimes with gothic effects, but always with a sense of some underlying moral purpose. You see Hawthorne too is smitten and bitten by that same Puritan ethos and that is the secret to the power of his writing.

As is usually the case with compilations, literary or otherwise, not all the work here is top-shelf. The best, and most representative to my mind, are the high Puritan "The Minister's Black Veil, the chilling "The White Old Maid', the swamp Yankee classic "Peter Goldthwaite's Treasure", the prophetic "The Birthmark", the Gothic classic "Rappaccini's Daughter", and another high Puritan classic "The Maypole of Merrymount.

Worth the effort
Not an entirely easy read because moral is intertwined with the stories.So if just breezing through is your goal, you won't understand or enjoy much of it.But if you take the time and exert the mental effort to try to understand the deeper meaning in these stories then, just as with The Scarlet Letter, by the time you are done reading these stories, you'll feel fulfilled somehow.You'll feel that you've read something of value and that it was well worth your time.

The Devil Made Me Do It
This publication of collected Hawthorne stories is a quite useful anthology.With 20 separate stories of the greatest renown and variety included; the reader gets a very fine spread of excellent short stories by one of America's most accomplished writers.

The title story, "Young Goodman Brown" is perhaps the best example of his famous short stories.In this tale, Young Goodman Brown takes a small trip down a path into the forest to contemplate a pact with the devil.His guilt is overwhelming.But, he notices something special on his way to meet Satan.He notices all the fine people of Salem who are gathered in front of himself, already in good association with the Dark Lord.

Hawthorne's descriptions are stark and heavily descriptive.His imagery is inescapable.And his social commentary is quick of wit and not very accepting of hypocrisy.He truly crafted his stories in a fine and substantial manner, such that they read fresh, even today so many years after their initial publication.

Of special note is "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment."The good Doctor wishes to conduct a behavioral experiment.He invites 4 of his close and elderly friends to the house.And he produces a flask of water from the "Fountain of Youth."The Doctor is successful in getting his guests to believe the source and act in accordance, seeing themselves all of a sudden much younger and spry.

Of particular interest is Hawhorne's own footnote to the story at the end which indicates that some have accused him of plagiary from another story by Alexander Dumas, but since he had written this one far before Dumas'; it is but Dumas' who gives him the honor of borrowing his original idea.

The book is particularly useful in its provision of endnotes that are very helpful in absorbing and imagining the totality of what Hawthorne was saying; particularly from a historical perspective.The book is recommended to all readers of classic American fiction, especially those lovers of Hawthorne.
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The novel begins in 17th-century Boston, Massachusetts, then a Puritan settlement. A young woman, Hester Prynne, is led from the town prison with her infant daughter, Pearl, in her arms and the scarlet letter -A- on her bosom. The scarlet letter "A" represents the act of adultery that she has committed and it is to be a symbol of her sin - a badge of shame - for all to see. A woman in the crowd tells an elderly onlooker that Hester is being punished for adultery. Hester's husband, who is much older than she is, sent her ahead to America, but he never arrived in Boston. The consensus is that he has been lost at sea. While waiting for her husband, Hester has apparently had an affair, as she has given birth to a child. She will not reveal her lover-s identity, however, and the scarlet letter, along with her public shaming, is her punishment for her sin and her secrecy. On this day Hester is led to the town scaffold and harangued by the town fathers, but she again refuses to identify her child-s father. ... Read more

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Set on a communal farm called Blithedale, "The Blithedale Romance" is 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, who turns out to be Zenobia's half-sister; and Miles Coverdale, the narrator of the story. The story concerns the freindship of the four at the commune, which starts intensely during the spring and summer but as autumn approaches begins to disintegrate towards a tragic end. A classic of American literature, "The Blithedale Romance" is a compelling narrative set against the backdrop of many important social and political issues of the 19th century. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A Bit of a Struggle to Read...
... but still worthwhile if: 1. you are seriously interested in Hawthorne, Melville, and other writers of America's first literary generation; 2. for its depiction of Brook Farm, the influential experiment in utopian socialism of the 1840s; 3. for its ambivalent depiction of feminism among the Transcendentalists.

"The Blithedale Romance" is undeniably an ambitious juggling act. In addition to its serious social themes of feminism and reformism, it's truly a 'romance', a melodramatic love-quadrangle resulting in multiple tragedies. It's also a "Gothic" novel, dabbling in popular spiritualism and mysticism yet sneering at itself for doing so. A large part of the failure of the novel as such comes from Hawthorne's inability to keep so many balls in the air. Nonetheless, anyone knowledgeable about social history will find 'Blithedale' a virtual documentation of the inchoate state of American culture in the 1840s. There are, by the way, passages of beautiful lyricism as well as others of picturesque charm; in one chapter, for example, the narrator, a 'temperance' man, sits in a New York tavern, watching for a mysterious derelict who is the key to the story. The narrator paints a rich picture of New York life by describing the paintings on the wall of the tavern. Hawthorne, it seems to me, wrote better sentences than chapters, and better chapters than novels.

Brook Farm was only the best-recorded of the many utopian communities founded in the USA in the late 18th and early 19th Centuries. Some of them were based on religious enthusiasms, some were philosophical, but several were essentially built around pre-Marxian communism. Brook Farm was launched as a joint stock commune of philosophical bent and evolved in a few years into a rigid socialism that disappointed "free spirits" among its founders. Hawthorne was in fact one of the founders and a member of the board, so to speak, but he withdrew in dismay after less than a year. Literary scholars of the 20th C have tended to treat Hawthorne as a "conservative" who rejected social and political reform. In 'Blithedale', the 'reformer' Hollingsworth is a man of talent and integrity who is 'diminished' by his reform monomania. But the 'anti-reformer' Coverdale, the failed poet narrator, is equally diminished by his inability to commit his talents and energies to anything worthwhile. Hawthorne himself was a study in ambivalence and irresolution, as peculiar and variable as any of his characters.

If, after this hesitant recommendation, you decide to read The Blithedale Romance, be sure to take a look at the wikipedia account of the real Brook Farm. It's worth knowing that American society has had a radical socialist strain from its very beginning. The Utopians were as much heirs of the Revolution as the Hamiltonian Whigs or the anti-government Jacksonians.

This is not the sort of book to take on vacation or to read on a long flight. If you're at all like me, you'll start and stop it, and need some diversion from your diversion. Reading it on "kindle" might not be the best idea.

memorable characters
The Blithedale Romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Blithedale Romance provides deep insight into the struggle for women's emancipation in the 19th century. Great ebook! ... Read more

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An adulteress, a runaway boy, a terrified soldier, and a maltreated sailor-all the heroes of these must-read novels have become part of our American literary heritage. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

Many say it is Hawthorne's best.I say second best.
It seems a little padded with descriptions of Roman architecture and festivals and the like, but the story is a good one, and the mysteries involved kept me reading through the slower parts to the end.All in all, it is very much worth reading.

Miriam, a creative painter, Hilda, a talented copyist, and Kenyon, a gifted sculptor, are all Americans.Donatello is a young Italian count who has befriended them all, but is besotted with Miriam.The faun of the title is a sculpture known as the Faun of Praxiteles.Donatello so closely resembles the statue that the friends kiddingly decide they must see Donatello's ears (normally covered by his hair) to see if they are pointed like the faun's.

Most of the other mysteries in the story are resolved at the end of the book, but we never do get to see Donatello's ears.

A disappointing and uninteresting book
Since mine is the first review of this edition of The Marble Faun I would advise the reader to read reviews of other editions as well. I found the book to be uninteresting and difficult to read fully and tended to scan much of it.Hawthorne is one of the greatest American novelists and his place in fiction is well established with The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables, but this work falls far short, in my view, of these works.

One problem is that much of the book is talky and descriptive rather than focusing on the story itself.The chapter titles give an indication of this circumstance:"Miriam's Studio," The Suburban Villa," "A Stroll on the Pincian, "A Scene on the Corso." The descriptions of ancient Rome and the events and culture of the city ("Market Day in Perugia" and the description of the Carnival) may be interesting to some readers. Furthermore the style of speaking is stilted, the characters talking as if they were part of a Shakespearean drama rather than Americans in the mid-nineteenth century. It is also unrealistic that the four characters keep running into each other by chance in a city as large as Rome.

The plot is very simple. Four young people are in Rome. Three are American artists; Miriam and Hilda are painters and Kenyon is a sculptor. The fourth person is a young Italian Count, Donatello. Donatello is a happy-go-lucky handsome fellow who the other three compare to a statue of a marble faun at the beginning of the book. The couples pair off with Miriam and Donatello forming one pair and Kenyon and Hilda the other. But then a terrible thing happens. The four friends go for a stroll and climb a lane leading to a palace with a parapet on the edge of a steep precipice.After a while Kenyon and Hilda leave, but Hilda turns back to wait for Miriam. Miriam and Donatello are standing by the parapet talking. Miriam talks about "Men whose lives were the bane of their fellow creatures. Men who poisoned the air...for their own selfish purposes. There was short work with such men on old Roman times."At this point a man came toward Miriam who became filled with despair and apparently falls to her knees. Donatello reacts quickly and hurls the figure over the parapet to his death below.The horror-stricken Miriam asks, "What have you done?" to which the now raging Donatello replies, " I did what ought to be done to a traitor. I did what your eyes bade me to do when I asked them with mine as I held the wretch over the precipice!" Hilda, who had just come back, witnesses the fatal act.

Why does Donatello commit this crime?Since he is strong enough to pick up the man and throw him over a wall, he surely could have taken him by the scruff of the neck and led him away from Miriam.The reason seems to be that Hawthorne is concerned with the idea of The Fall of Man. Miriam plays the part of the temptress, Eve with Donatello assaying the role of Adam. The book is infused with religion, particularly Hawthorne's take on Christianity so amply displayed in The Scarlet Letter. In fact, Hilda is described as a Puritan from New England.Miriam's fear of the man is not explained at the time, but is revealed later in the book that he is someone who loves her obsessively and whom she has rejected.

The murder changes the behavior of all four characters, especially Miriam, Donatello and Hilda. Miriam and Donatello go about in various disguises and with a general mood of sadness and depression. Hilda seeks consolation in a Catholic church where a priest refuses to hear her confession since she is not of that faith.Hawthorne's own take on religion may be found in the attitude of Kenyon. On page 286 he and Hilda are talking. Hilda asks if Donatello was really a faun--an innocent, carefree young man. Kenyon replies, "He perpetrated a great crime; and his remorse, gnawing into his soul has awakened it; developing a thousand high capabilities, moral and intellectual, which we never should have dreamed of asking for, within the scanty compass of the Donatello whom we knew. Sin has educated Donatello, and elevated him...Did Adam fall, that we might ultimately rise to a far loftier paradise than his?"Hilda is shocked by this rely:"Do not you perceive what a mockery your creed makes, not only of all religious sentiments, but of moral law--and how it annuls and obliterates whatever precepts of Heaven are written deepest within us? You have shocked me beyond words!"

The novel ends with an unusual postscript with the author entering the story and talking with Hilda and Kenyon, claiming that he does so only after many readers demanded further explanations of the mysteries of the story.Hawthorne supplies this explanation and a conclusion that is as unrealistic as much of the novel.


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