Twice-Told Tales
Nathaniel Hawthorne · 1837
The 1837 collection that prompted Poe's famous review. Hawthorne's Puritan allegories ("Young Goodman Brown," "The Minister's Black Veil") are the first great American short stories and remain psychologically acute.
The case against
For every 'Minister's Black Veil' there are three gentle sketches, pieces like 'A Rill from the Town Pump' and 'Little Annie's Ramble' that read like a kindly minister's newspaper column. Hawthorne tells you the moral, often twice, and the allegorical machinery clanks; characters exist to walk their lesson home. The great stories here are great, and they are outnumbered.
Short Stories · the Pro canon
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
if this one calls to you, so will these →
