The Cambridge Companion to Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Cambridge Companion to Nathaniel Hawthorne offers students and teachers an introduction to Hawthorne’s fiction and the lively debates that shape Hawthorne studies today. In newly commissioned essays, twelve eminent scholars of American literature introduce readers to key issues in Hawthorne scholarship and deepen our understanding of Hawthorne’s writing. Each of the major novels is treated in a separate chapter, while other essays explore Hawthorne’s art in relation to a stimulating array of issues and approaches. The essays reveal how Hawthorne’s work explores understandings of gender relations and sexuality, of childhood and selfhood, of politics and ethics, of history and modernity. An Introduction and a selected bibliography will help students and teachers understand how Hawthorne has been a crucial figure for each generation of readers of American literature.

• Comprehensive volume addressing both Hawthorne’s work and issues and topics surrounding it • Contributions by an array of eminent scholars • Essays combine accessibility with ‘state of the art’ ideas

Chronology of Hawthorne’s life; Introduction Richard H. Millington; 1. Hawthorne’s labors in Concord Larry J. Reynolds; 2. Hawthorne as cultural theorist Joel Pfister; 3. Hawthorne and American masculinity T. Walter Herbert; 4. Hawthorne and the question of women Alison Easton; 5. Hawthorne, modernity, and the literary sketch Kristie Hamilton; 6. Hawthorne’s American history Gillian Brown; 7. Hawthorne and the writing of childhood Karen Sanchez-Eppler; 8. Love and politics, sympathy and justice in The Scarlet Letter Brook Thomas; 9. The marvelous queer interiors of The House of the Seven Gables Christopher Castiglia; 10. Sympathy and reform in The Blithedale Romance Robert S. Levine; 11. Perplexity, sympathy, and the question of the human: a reading of The Marble Faun Emily Miller Budick; 12. Whose Hawthorne? Gordon Hutner.