A Wonder-Book for Girls & Boys: Illustrated & Annotated

by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Walter Crane (Illustrator), Amy Christenson (Editor)

Overview

We are pleased to present this book in its completion: Hawthorne's groundbreaking adaptation of ancient mythology into English fairy-tale form tells these tales in an almost "campfire-type" setting, and throughout it shows on a new level what a fun story-teller Hawthorne is, and what an amazing person he was to have included children in his endeavors. The colorful images by Walter Crane are a beautiful finishing touch to this collection.
For teaching, this is layed out in typical educational format: the narrator will tell the children what they can expect to gain from the story, then the story is told, followed by a discussion forum after the story. This process is systematic to the mid 1850's; a foundational education style which overflows into today's teaching styles.
Through the Tanglewood setting these stories are told by Eustace Bright, a college student, to a group of children. Like so many other of Hawthorne's works, the setting is inspired by an actual place that impacted his life. Tanglewood is an estate in Massachusetts where Hawthorne once lived. This book is the prequel to Tanglewood Tales.

This version includes:
• Biography of Nathaniel Hawthorne,
• Biography of his wife Sophia Peabody Hawthorne: the mother of his children; Uno, Julian, and Rose,
• Helpful Glossary of Old-English words found in these stories.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940149428687
Publisher:	Amy Christenson
Publication date:	04/04/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	3 MB
Age Range:	9 - 12 Years

About the Author

Nathaniel Hathorne, Jr., was born into an established New England puritan family on Independence Day, 1804, in Salem, Massachusetts. After the sudden death of his father, he and his mother and sisters moved in with his mother's family in Salem. Nathaniel's early education was informal; he was home-schooled by tutors until he enrolled in Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine.

Uninterested in conventional professions such as law, medicine, or the ministry, Nathaniel chose instead to rely "for support upon my pen." After graduation, he returned to his hometown, wrote short stories and sketches, and chanced the spelling of his surname to "Hawthorne." Hawthorne's coterie consisted of transcendentalist thinkers, including Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Although he did not subscribe entirely to the group's philosophy, he lived for six months at Brook Farm, a cooperative living community the transcendentalists established in West Roxbury, Massachusetts.

On July 9, 1942, Hawthorne married a follower of Emerson, Sophia Peabody, with whom he had a daughter, Una, and a son, Julian. The couple purchased a mansion in Concord, Massachusetts, that previously had been occupied by author Louisa May Alcott. Frequently in financial difficulty, Hawthorne worked at the custom houses in Salem and Boston to support his family and his writing. His peaceful life was interrupted when his college friend, Franklin Pierce, now president of the United States, appointed him U.S. consul at Liverpool, England, where he served for four years.

The publication of The Scarlet Letter in 1850 changed the way society viewed Puritanism. Considered his masterpiece, the novel focuses on Hawthorne's recurrent themes of sin, guilt, and punishment. Some critics have attributed his sense of guilt to his ancestors' connection with the persecution of Quakers in seventeenth-century New England and their prominent role in the Salem witchcraft trials in the 1690s.

On May 19, 1864, Hawthorne died in Plymouth, New Hampshire, leaving behind several unfinished novels that were published posthumously. He is buried at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts.

Author biography from the Barnes & Noble Classics edition of The Scarlet Letter.

Date of Birth:

July 4, 1804

Date of Death:

May 19, 1864

Place of Birth:

Salem, Massachusetts

Place of Death:

Plymouth, New Hampshire

Education:

Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, 1824