Twice-Told Tales
Hawthorne's first collection of stories, published when he was in his early thirties, includes The Minister's Black Veil and The May-Pole of Merry Mount. The stories are short, allegorical and often more suggestive than his novels.
He was writing for magazines and the constraints suited him: a single image, a moral problem, an ending that refuses to explain. Some pieces are slight, and the collection is uneven. But the best of them establish the tone that would make him famous, and they are a good way to decide whether you want to commit to a full novel.
Public-domain status
First published in 1837. In the United States, works published before 1930 are in the public domain. In the European Union the general term is the life of the author plus 70 years; Nathaniel Hawthorne died in 1864, so this work has been free to republish there since 1935.
Read the text free
- Project Gutenberg, ebook no. 13707 — plain text, EPUB and Kindle, checked by us
- Internet Archive — scanned editions and free audiobooks
- Open Library — edition history and borrowable copies
Keep reading
- Dubliners — James Joyce, 1914
- Bliss and Other Stories — Katherine Mansfield, 1920
- The Garden Party and Other Stories — Katherine Mansfield, 1922
- The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, Volume 2 — Edgar Allan Poe, 1840
- Salem — the city behind the books
- Reading lists — 19 ways through the collection
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