Twice-Told Tales.

by HAWTHORNE, Nathaniel.

$8,221 · Offered by Biblio

First edition

Boston: American Stationers Co.,, 1837. May we live to hear them told a hundred times" - Edgar Allan Poe First edition of the author's second book, his first short story collection, and one of the greatest collections of short fiction in American literature. Twice-Told Tales is the first book Hawthorne published under his own name: his short stories had previously been published in periodicals anonymously, as had his first novel, Fanshawe, but in 1837 his "status as 'the obscurest man of letters in America' ended when Twice-Told Tales was published with his name on the cover... The eighteen tales Hawthorne selected from the dozens already in print were clearly calculated to display his range and to win literary recognition. Genial sketches of everyday life, such as 'Little Annie's Ramble' and the even more popular 'A Rill from the Town-Pump', appealed especially to his women readers, as did the celebration of marital love that Longfellow liked best, 'The Great Carbuncle'. But Hawthorne also included speculative sketches such as 'Wakefield' and disturbing stories about the Puritan past such as 'The Minister's Black Veil' and 'The Gentle Boy'. Readers who had admired those stories before now learned Hawthorne's name, and he could anticipate widening his readership and opening 'an intercourse with the world'" (ANB). The book also resulted in Hawthorne's introduction to his future wife, Sophia Peabody, who he would marry five years later. The book was reviewed positively on publi

• Year: 1837
• Edition: First Edition
• Binding: hardcover

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