Nathaniel Hawthorne : Tales and Sketches (Library of America)

Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: An excellent book
A treasure of Hawthorne
A must have for any library

Rating:
Summary: My personal desert island book.
Review: If Library of America had never published another book, this one alone would have justified their existence and earned them the gratitude of readers everywhere. Nearly 1,500 pages of what is arguably the best prose ever published by an Ameican writer.

I am sappy enough to enjoy Hawthorne the most in old editions, the older the better. But the stories are the same, no matter whether you're reading them in a dusty 19th century edition of _Mosses from an Old Manse_ or in this state-of-the-art omnibus edition, which includes all of Hawthorne's tales and sketches arranged chronologically, with brief bibliographic and biographic essays and a few explanatory notes. Take it on vacation with you some summer and experience it for yourself.

Rating:
Summary: All or Nothing at All
Review: This is the best selection to buy of Hawthorne's short stories because it is NOT a selection, it is complete and, if you believe the editor, it's actually more accurate in its assessment of what is and is not a Hawthorne story than some complete collections because he did not include here some stories that his co-editors on the Hawthorne Centenary Edition did want to include. (Hawthorne spent much of his career as an underpaid and unsung magazine writer and some of his work went with no byline and without reprinting at his own choice, so what he wrote is no easy matter to decide.) The stories are, you probably know if you're looking up this book, stark and wonderful. But some of them are also twee and a little fanciful and not so wonderful. That too is instructive. One very useful thing about this volume is that it includes a listing of when each story first saw print in magazine form and when in book form. In that way the reader can chart Hawthorne's development as a magazine writer and a professional which in every possible sense of the word he determined to become and despite some difficult odds finally was. Some of the most beautiful and terrifying stories in the language and a beautiful object to hold in your hand. Expensive, but if you can get it - this is the one to buy.