Twice-Told Tales

About this book

This collection gathers Nathaniel Hawthorne's early stories and sketches: 'The Minister's Black Veil', in which a New England clergyman suddenly appears with his face covered by a black veil and never removes it; 'Dr Heidegger's Experiment', in which four elderly friends drink water from the Fountain of Youth; 'The Ambitious Guest'; 'Wakefield', about a man who walks out on his wife and lives in the next street for twenty years; and many others.

Context and significance

The title comes from Shakespeare's King John ('Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale'), since most of the pieces had appeared before in magazines. When the book was published in 1837, and in an enlarged edition in 1842, Edgar Allan Poe praised it in a famous review that set out his own theory of the short story. Read Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables.

About the author