The Portable Hawthorne includes writings from each major stage in the career of Nathaniel Hawthorne: a number of his most intriguing early tales, all of The Scarlet Letter, excerpts from his three subsequently published romances— The House of Seven Gables , The Blithedale Romance , and The Marble Faun —as well as passages from his European journals and a sampling of his last, unfinished works. The editor’s introduction and head notes trace the evolution of Hawthorne’s writing over the course of his long career: from the tales, to their apotheosis in The Scarlet Letter , through his popular romances, to his private journals and frustrated attempts at another romance. Readers looking for a critical vantage point from which to see Hawthorne whole—his artistic rise, triumph, and sad decline—can find it in this collection.   Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on July 4, 1804, in Salem, Massachusetts, the son and grandson of proud New England seafarers. He lived in genteel poverty with his widowed mother and two young sisters in a house filled with Puritan ideals and family pride in a prosperous past. His boyhood was, in most respects, pleasant and normal. In 1825 he was graduated from Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, and he returned to Salem determined to become a writer of short stories. For the next twelve years he was plagued with unhappiness and self-doubts as he struggled to master his craft. He finally secured some small measure of success with the publication of his Twice-Told Tales (1837). His marriage to Sophia Peabody in 1842 was a happy one. The Scarlet Letter (1850), which brought him immediate recognition, was followed by The House of the Seven Gables (1851). After serving four years as the American Consul in Liverpool, England, he traveled in Italy; he returned home to Massachusetts in 1860. Depressed, weary of writing, and failing in health, he died on May 19, 1864, at Plymouth, New Hampshire. William C. Spengemann is the Hale Professor in Arts and Sciences and Professor of English Emeritus at Dartmouth College. He edited the Penguin Classics edition of Nineteenth-Century American Poetry . Table of Contents   Title Page Copyright Page Introduction   I - THE TALES 1830-1852 EDITOR’S NOTE MY KINSMAN, MAJOR MOLINEUX 1832 ROGER MALVIN’S BURIAL 1832 YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN 1835 THE MINISTER’S BLACK VEIL - A PARABLE 1836 THE MAN OF ADAMANT - AN APOLOGUE 1837 THE BIRTH-MARK 1843 RAPPACCINI’S DAUGHTER - FROM THE WRITINGS OF AUBÉPINE 1844 PREFACES - FROM “THE old MANSE” 1846 TO TWICE-TOLD TALES 1851 TO THE SNOW-IMAGE 1852 - To Horatio Bridge, Esq., U.S.N.   II - THE SCARLET LETTER 1850 EDITOR’S NOTE I - THE PRISON-DOOR II - THE MARKET-PLACE III - THE RECOGNITION IV - THE INTERVIEW V - HESTER AT HER NEEDLE VI - PEARL VII - THE GOVERNOR’S HALL VIII - THE ELF-CHILD AND THE MINISTER IX - THE LEECH X - THE LEECH AND HIS PATIENT XI - THE INTERIOR OF A HEART XII - THE MINISTER’S VIGIL XIII - ANOTHER VIEW OF HESTER XIV - HESTER AND THE PHYSICIAN XV - HESTER AND PEARL XVI - A FOREST WALK XVII - THE PASTOR AND HIS PARISHIONER XVIII - A FLOOD OF SUNSHINE XIX - THE CHILD AT THE BROOK-SIDE XX - THE MINISTER IN A MAZE XXI - THE NEW ENGLAND HOLIDAY XXII - THE PROCESSION XXIII - THE REVELATION OF THE SCARLET LETTER XXIV - CONCLUSION   III - THE PUBLISHED ROMANCES 1851-1860 EDITOR’S NOTE FROM THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES 1851 FROM THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE 1852 FROM THE MARBLE FAUN 1860   IV - THE EUROPEAN JOURNALS 1853-1860 EDITOR’S NOTE FROM THE ENGLISH, FRENCH, AND ITALIAN JOURNALS   V - THE LAST YEARS 1860-1864 EDITOR’S NOTE PASSAGES FROM THE LETTERS AND THE UNFINISHED ROMANCES   Suggestions for Further Reading THE PORTABLE HAWTHORNE Best known today for his enigmatic tales and the short novel called The Scarlet Letter, NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE was born in Salem, Massachusetts, at the dawn of the nineteenth century. After graduating from Bowdoin College, in 1825, he published his first romance, Fanshawe, and, when that failed, turned to writing short stories and prose sketches that, over the next two decades, gradually made him known in America and England. The Scarlet Letter appeared in 1850, followed soon after by The House of the Seven Gables and The Blithedale Romance, each of which increased his international renown. The next seven years he spent with his family in Europe, first as U.S. consul in Liverpool, then as a resident tourist on the Continent. Just prior to the publication of The Marble Faun, his last completed romance, he returned to his home in Concord, Massachusetts, where he spent the remaining four years of his life preparing excerpts from his English journals for publication while trying, unsuccessfully, to finish two more romances, based in part on his years in Europe. After a period of declining health, he died before his sixtieth birthday, while traveling in New Hampshire with his old college friend Franklin Pierce.   WILLIAM c. SPENGEMANN is the Hale Professor in Arts and Science