The text of this Norton Critical Edition contains twenty-one of Hawthorne's most noteworthy tales and sketches, reprinted from the best collections available. Each tale is fully annotated.
"The Author on His Work" contains the prefaces Hawthorne wrote for the three collections of tales published during his lifetime, relevant selections from his American Notebooks, and selected letters. Notebook excerpts and letters are reprinted from The Centenary Edition of the Worrks of Nathaniel Hawthorne.
The "Criticism" offers key contemporary assessments, including those by Edgar Allan Poe and Herman Melville, as well as a wide range of recent essays, including those by Jorge Luis Borges and Michael Colacurcio.