From 1842 to 1845, Nathaniel Hawthorne lives with his newlywed wife, the painter Sophia Peabody, in the old rectory in Concord, Massachusetts. For him, it's a paradise of little things. But then the couple has to leave the house because rent debts have piled up. Nevertheless, the writer will think back on this time as a happy one for the rest of his life. In 1846, "Mosses from an old Manse" is published. An autobiographical essay in which Hawthorne once again takes himself back to the place where he led a relatively carefree, liberated life. Gröls Classics - English Edition

Mosses from an Old Manse, and Other Stories by Nathaniel HawthorneMosses from an Old Manse is Nathaniel Hawthorne's second story collection, first published in 1846 in two volumes and featuring sketches and tales written over a span of more than twenty years, including such classics as "Young Goodman Brown," "The Birthmark," and "Rappaccini's Daughter." Herman Melville deemed Hawthorne the American Shakespeare, and Henry James wrote that his early tales possess "the element of simple genius, the quality of imagination. That is the real charm of Hawthorne's writing--this purity and spontaneity and naturalness of fancy."

Mosses from an Old Manse is a short story collection by Nathaniel Hawthorne, first published in 1846. The collection included several previously-published short stories and was named in honor of The Old Manse where Hawthorne and his wife lived for the first three years of their marriage. Stories include: The Birthmark; Young Goodman Brown; Rappaccini's Daughter; Mrs. Bullfrog; The Celestial Railroad; The Procession of Life; Feathertop: A Moralized Legend; Egotism; or, The Bosom Serpent; Drowne's Wooden Image; Roger Malvin's Burial; and The Artist of the Beautiful.

Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Storie By Nathaniel Hawthorne

Reproduction of the original.

Mosses from an Old Manse, collection of short stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne, published in two volumes in 1846. The 25 tales and sketches of this volume-written while Hawthorne lived at the Old Manse in Concord, Mass., the home of Ralph Waldo Emerson's ancestors-include some of the author's finest short works. Many of the Romantic themes found in Hawthorne's longer fiction are addressed in the stories-for example, the conflict between reason and emotion in the Gothic tales "Rappaccini's Daughter" and "The Birthmark" and between Puritan religion and the supernatural in "Young Goodman Brown." Also noteworthy are the title essay describing the parsonage and "Roger Malvin's Burial," a historical tale. The element of simple genius, the quality of imagination. That is the real charm of Hawthorne's writing-this purity and spontaneity and naturalness of fancy.

Most of Hawthorne's early writings were magazine stories subsequently collected in books. His second story collection, Mosses from an Old Manse, includes many of his best-known short stories. Among the 22 stories in this edition are "Young Goodman Brown," "Rappucini's Daughter," "The Birthmark," "Egotism, or the Bosom Serpent," "Roger Malvin's Burial," and "The Artist of the Beautiful."

Many of the tales collected in Mosses from an Old Manse are allegories and, typical of Hawthorne, focus on the negative side of human nature. Hawthorne's friend Herman Melville noted this aspect in his review "Hawthorne and His Mosses":This black conceit pervades him through and through. You may be witched by his sunlight,--transported by the bright gildings in the skies he builds over you; but there is the blackness of darkness beyond; and even his bright gildings but fringe and play upon the edges of thunder-clouds.William Henry Channing noted in his review of the collection, in The Harbinger, its author "had been baptized in the deep waters of Tragedy", and his work was dark with only brief moments of "serene brightness" which was never brighter than "dusky twilight".

Presents twenty-six moral tales written during Hawthorne's residence in the historic Concord house.