Books by Nathaniel Hawthorne
"Rappaccini's Daughter" is a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne first published in the December 1844 issue of The United States Magazine and Democratic Review, and later in the 1846 collection Mosses from an Old Manse. It is about Giacomo Rappaccini, a medical researcher in medieval Padua who grows a garden of poisonous plants. He brings up his daughter to tend the plants, and she becomes resistant to the poisons, but in the process she herself becomes poisonous to others. The traditional story of a poisonous maiden has been traced back to India, and Hawthorne's version has been adapted in contemporary works.
----------
Also contained in:
- [American Fiction](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL14937925W)
- [American Short Story](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL8593547W)
- [America's Literature](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL3524715W)
- [Arbor House Treasury of Horror and the Supernatural](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL15705711W)
- [Best American Tales](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL2341388W)
- [Best of Hawthorne](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL455202W)
- [Celestial Railroad and Other Stories](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL455215W)
- [Complete Novels and Selected Tales of Nathaniel Hawthorne](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL15136484W)
- [Complete Short Stories of Nathaniel Hawthorne](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL455222W)
- [Future Perfect](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL3931584W)
- [Great American Short Stories](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL16045961W)
- [Great American Short Stories](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL15062982W)
- [Great Science Fiction About Doctors](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL16045473W)
- [Great Short Stories](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL1582988W)
- [Great Short Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL455617W)
- [Harbrace Anthology of Short Fiction: Second Edition](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL26138408W)
- [Hawthorne's Short Stories](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL455582W)
- [Modern Masterpieces of Short Prose Fiction](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL7706876W)
- [Mosses from an Old Manse](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL455350W)
- [Mosses from an Old Manse: 1/2](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL455531W)
- [Nathaniel Hawthorne's Tales](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL16618230W)
- [Oxford Book of Gothic Tales](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL2963651W)
- [Rappaccini's Daughter ](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL9171221W)
- [Representative Selections](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL455540W)
- [Selected Short Stories of Nathaniel Hawthorne](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL455554W)
- [Selected Tales and Sketches](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL455628W)
- [Selected Tales and Sketches](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL20642879W)
- [Selected Tales and Sketches: Third Edition](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL20642876W)
- [Seven Stories](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL455451W)
- [Shapes of the supernatural](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL5913450W)
- [Tales and Sketches](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL15299316W)
- [Three Complete Novels](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL455263W)
- [Young Goodman Brown and Other Short Stories](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL455509W)
- [Young Goodman Brown and Other Tales](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL455511W)
A superb depiction of a utopian community that cannot survive the individual passions of its members. In language that is suggestive and often erotic, Nathaniel Hawthorne tells a tale of failed possibilities and multiple personal betrayals as he explores the contrasts between what his characters espouse and what they actually experience in an 'ideal' community. A theme of unrealized sexual possibilities serves as a counterpoint to the other failures at Blithedale: class and sex distinctions are not eradicated, and communal work on the farm proves personally unrewarding and economically disastrous. Based in part on Hawthorne's own experiences at Brook Farm, an experimental socialist community, The Blithedale Romance is especially timely in light of renewed interest in self-sufficient and other cooperative societies.
In a sleepy little New England village stands a dark, weather-beaten, many-gabled house. This brooding mansion is haunted by a centuries-old curse that casts the shadow of ancestral sin upon the last four members of the distinctive Pyncheon family. Mysterious deaths threaten the living. Musty documents nestle behind hidden panels carrying the secret of the family's salvation -- or its downfall.
Hawthorne called The House of the Seven Gables "a romance," and freely bestowed upon it many fascinating gothic touches. A brilliant intertwining of the popular, the symbolic, and the historical, the novel is a powerful exploration of personal and national guilt, a work that Henry James declared "the closest approach we are likely to have to the Great American Novel."
A stark and allegorical tale of adultery, guilt, and social repression in Puritan New England, The Scarlet Letter is a foundational work of American literature. Nathaniel Hawthorne's exploration of the dichotomy between the public and private self, internal passion and external convention, gives us the unforgettable Hester Prynne, who discovers strength in the face of ostracism and emerges as a heroine ahead of her time.
