Twice Told Tales

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s first published book, “Twice Told Tales”, established him as a American literary force in the early 1800s.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of “The Scarlet Letter” and “The House of the Seven Gables” published “Twice-Told Tales” in 1837. This book collected 18 stories Hawthorne had previously published in small literary journals. The collection was expanded five years later to more than double the total story count to 39. The stories that make up the collection show Hawthorne’s Puritan roots and explore ideas of sin and pride through allegory, a literary device that gives a story a second meaning. Hawthorne’s contemporaries, Poe and Longfellow, praised the book, which was also named 1837’s Book of the Year by the Grolier Club, America’s oldest book club.