Handsomely produced in hardcover at a very affordable price, Barnes & Noble Signature Editions have been carefully edited and reset in a modern design for greater readability. Each volume includes an introduction, informative notes and a chronology of the writer's life and times to enable the reader to gain a deeper understanding of these enduring works.

This title is suitable for children aged 10 to 13 years old. This book, from one of American literature's greatest authors, Nathaniel Hawthorne, offers a selection of Greek myths, retold to make them more accessible for children. It includes: The Gorgon's Head, The Three Golden Apples and The Paradise of Children, among others. This edition, leatherbound and featuring illustrations by Walter Crane, is sure to make a welcome addition to any home library.

'Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, — stern and wild ones, — and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss'. Set in the harsh Puritan community of seventeenth-century Boston, this tale of an adulterous entanglement that results in an illegitimate birth reveals Nathaniel Hawthorne's concerns with the tension between the public and the private selves. Publicly disgraced and ostracized, Hester Prynne draws on her inner strength and certainty of spirit to emerge as the first true heroine of American fiction. Arthur Dimmesdale stands as a classic study of a self divided; trapped by the rules of society, he suppresses his passion and disavows his lover, Hester, and their daughter, Pearl.

Thou and thine, Hester Prynne, belong to me. With these chilling words a husband claims his wife after a two-year absence. But the child she clutches is not his, and Hester must wear a scarlet A upon her breast, the sin of adultery visible to all. Under an assumed name her husband begins his search for her lover, determined to expose what Hester is equally determined to protect. Defiant and proud, Hester witnesses the degradation of two very different men, as moral codes and legal imperatives painfully collide. Set in the Puritan community of seventeenth-century Boston, The Scarlet Letter also sheds light on the nineteenth-century in which it was written, as Hawthorne explores his ambivalent relations with his Puritan forebears. The text of this edition is taken from the Centenary Edition of Hawthorne's works, the most authoritative critical edition.

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.

Discover how a midnight ritual transforms the life of a young Puritan. Young Goodman Brown witness what happens to three old friends who discover the potion of eternal youth, Dr Heidegger's Experiment. Experience the tragedy of the scientist who strives to achieve perfection at all costs, The Birthmark.

The fragility of human life and art dominate this story of American expatriates in Italy in the mid-19th 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.

«Based on Hawthorne's own experience of a Utopian socialist community outside Boston, «The Blithedale Romance» tells of the attempts of a like-minded group to begin reforming a dissipated America. However, rather than dropping bad habits and changing the world, Coverdale the prurient bachelor, Hollingsworth the furious philanthropist, Zenobia the voluptuous feminist, and Priscilla the vulnerable seamstress soon find themselves pursuing egotistical paths which must lead ultimately to tragedy. Evoking a bright rural idyll which fails to survive the ravages of lust and power, Hawthorne cynically undermines the fatuities of nineteenth-century American idealism.»