Today I finished Nathaniel Hawthorne's Twice-Told Tales. I enjoyed it, for the most part. It is indicative of Hawthorne's style, and reminiscent of the other works I've read by him, namely The Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Gables, and A Wonder Book. Some of the stories had the dark, almost dour feelings that could be found in The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables, while other stories had the lightness and imagination of A Wonder Book.
The edition I read includes two afterwords, written by no less than Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Edgar Allen Poe. Describing Hawthorne himself as a true genius, and a poet working in prose, they praise his work for its orginality and for its nationality.
Next on the list is Gargantua & Pantagruel by Francois Rabelais. The particular edition I will be reading was published by the Heritage Press in 1942. It came as a hardcover, slipcased, with illustrations by Lynd Ward, and at $9.98 was a better deal than even the Everyman's Library edition.
No comments:
Post a Comment