Tales And Sketches

The short fiction of a writer who helped to shape the course of American literature. With a determined commitment to the history of his native land, Nathaniel Hawthorne revealed, more incisively than any writer of his generation, the nature of a distinctly American consciousness. The pieces collected here deal with essentially American matters: the Puritan past, the Indians, the Revolution. But Hawthorne was highly - often wickedly - unorthodox in his account of life in early America, and his precisely constructed plots quickly engage the reader's imagination. Written in the 1820s, 30s, and 40s, these works are informed by themes that reappear in Hawthorne's longer works: The Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Gables and The Blithedale Romance. And, as Michael J. Colacurcio points out in his excellent introduction, they are themes that are now deeply embedded in the American literary tradition.

Promising spine-tingling delights and sleepless nights, this annotated edition of Tales and Sketches is a treasure trove for scholars and general readers alike, confirming Edgar Allan Poe's status as one of literary art's "most brilliant but erratic stars". This volume is the first of two, edited by the consummate Poe scholar Thomas Ollive Mabbott, collecting all the tales of a master of the uncanny, the unnerving, and the terrifying. Each volume is enriched with Mabbott's detailed and authoritative notes on sources, the history and collation of all known texts authorized by Poe, and variants of Poe's "final" version. Marrying grotesque inventiveness with superb plot construction, Poe's strikingly original tales often use only one main character and one main incident. In many of them, horror and suspense, revenge and torture, are laced with hilarious satire. Volume I includes "Ms. Found in a Bottle", the horrific "Berenice", "Ligeia" (which Poe considered his finest tale), "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", and one of his most famous stories, "The Fall of the House of Usher".

A collection of short stories, purporting to tell the history of early pioneers who settled in the region of what would become the city of Cincinnati, along the Ohio River, which flows between Ohio and Kentucky; stories about the European roots of American settlers, the Indian wars and conflicts they encountered in clearing the Ohio wilderness, and touching moments in their lives.

This title collects the digital paintings and sketches of Christian Alzmann, as well as his more traditional pencil sketches.

These novellas continue Sienkiewicz's close examination of Polish culture and history, providing a rich perspective for modern readers.--Library Journal.

Experience the haunting and imaginative world of the Hawthorne dynasty in this collection of short stories and sketches by Julian and Nathaniel Hawthorne. From the eerie allegories of Nathaniel to the gritty realism of Julian, these tales offer a kaleidoscopic view of human nature and its aspirations, fears, and foibles. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

This is the first and most complete collection of all 136 humorous sketches and tales that Samuel Clemens (1835–1910), a.k.a. Mark Twain, started writing as a young reporter for various newspapers and magazines and later saw fit to issue in book form. Many pieces appeared in rare, first printings, only to be dropped in subsequent editions; for this reason, readers will encounter a number of yarns and tall tales unavailable elsewhere, even in the collected works. More unvarnished than his short stories or novels, and more willing to indulge in fun for its own sake, these sketches comprise a substantial share of his literary apprenticeship and legacy. As brilliant, representative nuggets of Twain's humor in its purest form, they carry the imprint of Twain's wit, imagination, and humanism, his fresh and always idiomatic prose. From 1862's "Curing a Cold" to 1904's "Italian Without a Master," this collection allows readers to share Twain's vision of life as a strange and comic affair. No one interested in American humor (or in need of a good laugh) can long remain indifferent to this uproarious book.