Showing results by author "Nathaniel Hawthorne" in All Categories

The Ultimate Classics Collection: Volume Two is the second instalment of our wide-ranging classic collections. Volume Two features 13 essential classic novels from Jane Austen; Edith Wharton; Leo Tolstoy; D.H. Lawrence, and many more, alongside selected poetry from Christina Rossetti; Elizabeth Browning; and Emily Dickinson. Read by a cast of incredible narrators including Joanne Froggatt, Adjoa Andoh, Jonathan Keeble, and many more, this is your new go-to collection to catch up on those classics you've always wanted to hear.

Set in the rigid world of Puritan New England, The Scarlet Letter is a haunting exploration of sin, identity, and the consequences of silence. Hester Prynne is an outcast. Forced to wear the scarlet "A" for adultery, she refuses to name her child's father. While she finds unexpected strength in her open shame, the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale rots from the inside with hidden guilt, and the malevolent Roger Chillingworth becomes consumed by revenge.

The American Classics Collection is a century-spanning collection of 17 classic novels, short stories, essay, and poetry by American authors, read by a cast of incredible narrators including Kobna Holdbrook-Smith; Nathan Osgood; Robert G. Slade; Jonathan Keeble, and more. Included here are stories by some of the greatest writers of all time, including Ernest Hemingway; Mark Twain; F. Scott Fitzgerald; Edith Wharton; Frederick Douglass; and H.P. Lovecraft, amongst a host of others.

A tale of betrayal, revenge, loyalty, and redemption, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a true classic. Hester Prynne settles in a little town in Puritan-era Massachusetts while awaiting her husband’s arrival from England. Hester becomes pregnant, exposing her sin in the eyes of the townsfolk. Her penalty: wearing an embroidered A on her bosom for the remainder of her life. When Hester’s husband arrives in the town anticipating a joyous reunion with his young wife, he instead begins a cankering quest to uncover the father of Hester’s child.

Written in the winter of 1849, The Scarlet Letter unfolds the story of Hester Prynne, a young woman branded as an adulteress in the harsh Puritan world of 17th-century New England. As Hester calls on her inner strength to transcend her shame, the scarlet letter ceases to be a stigma and finally becomes Hester's symbol of self-affirmation. This dramatic reading heightens the sense of lyric poetry that permeates every line of Nathaniel Hawthorne's great novel.

The Ultimate Classic Collection is drawn from our extensive back catalogue of over 300 short stories and showcases some of the finest examples of the genre: from romance to horror, detective and crime stories to the best of women's writing.

The Ultimate Classics Collection: Volume One is a continent-hopping, century-spanning collection of 15 essential classic novels by British, American, and Russian authors, read by a cast of incredible narrators including Stephen Fry, Jason Isaacs, Adjoa Andoh, David Rintoul, and many more.

The Scarlet Letter is powerful American story of secret love and sin, of spiritual hypocrisy and moral courage, and of female bravery during a time when women were rarely respected, resonated with readers then and continues to do so now. Set in the staunchly Puritan world of 1600s Boston Hester Prynne has committed adultery and given birth to an illegitimate daughter, Pearl, while her elder husband is away. Refusing to reveal Pearl's father Hester is punished and scorned by the community and forced to wear a red letter "A".Over seven years Hester, Pearl's father, and Hester's estranged husband...

The inevitable is understood by each and every one of us who faces the final calling. So too are the effects on those left behind. The memories are there but the empty space, the void can never be refilled. It remains a dark, unreliable pit of loneliness. The sadness and often depression, the lack of will to continue may swamp us all. Unquenchable, undeniable. But loss can, after mourning, give the opportunity to reappraise the lost and how we can each move forward. In the literary world an accessible balance can be given.

Included. The Apparition Of Mrs. Veal by Daniel Defoe,. Alice Addertongue by Benjamin Franklin,. The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving,. Prosper Mérimée by Mateo Falcone,. Napoleon And The Spectre by Charlotte Bronte,. The Mortal Immortal by Mary Shelley,. Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne,. Dr. Heidegger's Experiment by Nathaniel Hawthorne,. Overcoat by Nikolai Gogol,. The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe,. The Cask Of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe,. An Honest Thief by Fyodor Dostoyevsky,. Frog by Edgar Allan Poe,. The Knitted Collar by Mary Anne Hoare.

"To inherit a great fortune. To inherit a great misfortune." These words, from Nathaniel Hawthorne's notebook, neatly encapsulate the theme of The House of the Seven Gables - that of a family whose fortunes are poisoned by its past misdeeds. The sins of the Pyncheon father are visited upon his children over a period of several generations, until such time as one of his descendants unites with a member of the family he has wronged. Love conquers hate, and new blood washes away the original crime.

The Scarlet Letter: A Romance is a classic novel set in 17th-century Puritan Massachusetts. It tells the story of Hester Prynne, who bears an illegitimate child and is condemned to wear a scarlet "A" (for "adulteress") on her chest as punishment. Hester bravely endures the public shame while raising her daughter, Pearl. Her secret lover, the town minister Arthur Dimmesdale, is wracked with guilt, while her estranged husband, Roger Chillingworth, seeks revenge. Through themes of sin, guilt, and redemption, Hawthorne critiques the rigid moral codes of the Puritan society. The novel explores the ...

For an atheist it’s a great deal, though it does suggest atheism may have a weak point. For those of faith it’s a matter of jam now and purgatory tomorrow. A bargain many artists feel is something they can live with. For agnostics it’s usually a question of can the afterlife really be that bad, would workplace regulations reach all parts of heaven and hell. However, in this volume the terms are agreed and the Devil pays his fees and the character his dues, each happy to wait a few decades for the eternal payback.

One of the most important novels in classic literature, Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter tackles the subject of adultery, with the notorious Hester Prynne at the forefront of the scandal in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In the beginning of the novel, Hester is serving time in prison for having a child out of wedlock and is forced to wear a scarlet A on her clothing at all times, so she cannot run from her sin no matter where she goes.

Hester Prynne has been marked as an outcast from the society of colonial Boston for the sin of bearing a child out of wedlock. Her punishment? When she is released from jail, she must endure public shaming at the pillory with her baby. And then—worse yet—she is forced to spend the rest of her life wearing a red letter “A” on her breast, to mark her as an Adulterer. Although compelled by the puritanical town fathers to wear the scarlet letter, Hester refuses to name the baby’s father.

The relentless curse on the Pynchon family of Salem, Massachusetts, which has inhabited the House of the Seven Gables for generations, is resurrected two centuries later by their descendants - with surprising results.

One evening, against the wishes of his frightened wife, young Puritan Goodman Brown embarks on a mysterious errand that leads him through the skeletal woods to a Black Mass being held by his fellow townsmen. His life forever changed by contact with the evil congregation. And his horror is amplified by the attendance of one participant in whom he had placed his greatest trust.

Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on 4th July 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, a town synonymous with the earlier Salem Witch Trials. It was instrumental in Hawthorne’s later use of American Gothic and dark romanticism in his writing. ‘Rapaccinni’s Daughter’ is a classic piece of literature from his pen. Set in Italy, it is an unsettling story of romance destroyed by science.

Set in 17th-century Puritan Boston, Massachusetts, during the years 1642 to 1649, The Scarlet Letter tells the story of Hester Prynne, who conceives a daughter through an affair and will not reveal her lover’s identity. The scarlet letter A (for adultery) she has to wear on her clothes, along with her public shaming, is her punishment for her sin and her secrecy. She struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity. Throughout the book, Hawthorne explores themes of legalism, sin, and guilt.

As she emerges from the prison of a Puritan New England town, Hester Prynne defies the dark gloom much as the rose blooms against the prison door. With her illegitimate baby, Pearl, clutched in her arms and the letter A - the mark of an adulteress - embroidered in scarlet thread on her breast, Hester holds her head high as she faces the malice and scorn of the townsfolk. Her powerful, bittersweet story is an American classic that continues to touch the hearts of modern readers with its timeless themes of guilt, passion and repentance.