House of the Seven Gables (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) » (Special Value)

"Words -- so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them," Nathaniel Hawthorne once reflected. Hawthorne's own words indeed had an undeniable power. Author of The Scarlet Letter and originator of the American short story, Hawthorne left an indelible impression on literature that would influence his fellow writers into the next century.

The House of the Seven Gables, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics:

• New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars
• Biographies of the authors
• Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events
• Footnotes and endnotes
• Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work
• Comments by other famous authors
• Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations
• Bibliographies for further reading
• Indices & Glossaries, when appropriate

All editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works.



Greed, treachery, mesmerism, and murder are just some of the bricks Hawthorne uses to build The House of the Seven Gables. Generations before the present story begins, wealthy Colonel Pyncheon covets Matthew Maule’s land. When Maule is hanged for witchcraft, he puts a curse on the Colonel—and all his descendants. Now the menacing Judge Pyncheon continues the family tradition of hiding cruelty under a dazzling smile, while his scowling niece, Hepzibah, and half-mad nephew, Clifford, are reduced to poverty by his machinations. But the younger generation, embodied in their distant cousin, Phoebe, becomes a ray of hope penetrating the dark house.

Though Hawthorne openly discusses his book’s “moral” in its preface, The House of the Seven Gables is no dry sermon. In fact, a strong stream of poetic fantasy runs through it, which the author acknowledges by calling it a “romance,” rather than a novel. Like his other great works, The House of the Seven Gables reflects Hawthorne’s rich understanding of complex motives, of individuals caught in the unending struggle between our highest aspirations and our basest desires.

Gordon Tapper, Associate Professor of English at DePauw University, is the author of The Machine That Sings: Modernism, Hart Crane, and the Culture of the Body. He also wrote the Introduction and Notes to the Barnes & Noble Classics edition of Willa Cather’s My Ántonia.