This all-new edition of Hawthorne’s celebrated 1851 novel is based on The Ohio State University Press’s Centenary Edition of the Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne.
It
is accompanied by thorough explanatory annotations and an insightful
introduction to the novel and antebellum culture by Robert S. Levine.
"Contexts" brings together a generous selection of primary materials
intended to provide readers with background on the novel’s central
themes. Historical documents include accounts of Salem’s history by
Thomas Maule, Robert Calef, Joseph B. Felt, and Charles W. Upham,
which Hawthorne drew on for The House of the Seven Gables.
The importance of the house in antebellum America—as a manifestation of
the body, a site of genealogical history, and a symbol of the
republic’s middle class—is explored through the diverse writings of
William Andrus Alcott, Edgar Allan Poe, and J. H. Agnew, among others.
The impact of technological developments on the novel, especially of
daguerreotypy, is considered through the writings of Ralph Waldo
Emerson, Gustave de Beaumont, and Alexis de Tocqueville, among
others. Also included are two of Hawthorne’s literary sketches—"Alice
Doane’s Appeal" and "The Old Apple Dealer"—that demonstrate the
continuity of Hawthorne’s style, from his earlier periodical writing
to his later career as a novelist.
"Criticism" provides a comprehensive overview of the critical
commentary on the novel from its publication to the present. Among the
twenty-seven critics represented are Herman Melville, Harriet Beecher
Stowe, Henry James, Nina Baym, Eric Sundquist, Richard H. Millington,
Alan Trachtenberg, Amy Schrager Lang, and Christopher Castiglia.
A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included.
