The Portable Hawthorne includes writings from each major stage in the career of Nathaniel Hawthorne: a number of his most intriguing early tales, all of "The Scarlet Letter," excerpts from his three subsequently published romances"The House of Seven Gables, The Blithedale Romance," and "The Marble Faunas well as passages from his European journals and a sampling of his last, unfinished works. The editors introduction and head notes trace the evolution of Hawthornes writing over the course of his long career: from the tales, to their apotheosis in "The Scarlet Letter," through his popular romances, to his private journals and frustrated attempts at another romance. Readers looking for a critical vantage point from which to see Hawthorne wholehis artistic rise, triumph, and sad declinecan find it in this collection.