Edgar Allan Poe: Review of Hawthorne „Twice-Told Tales“
Twice-Told Tales. By Nathaniel Hawthorne. Two Volumes. Boston: James Munroe and Co:
We said a few hurried words about Mr. Hawthorne in our last number, with the design of speaking more fully in the present. We are still, however, pressed for room, and must necessarily discuss his volumes more briefly and more at random than their high merits deserve.
The book professes to be a collection of tales, yet is, in two respects, misnamed. These pieces are now in their third ret publication, and, of course, are thrice-told. Moreover, they are by no means all tales, either in the ordinary or in the legitimate understanding of the term. Many of them are pure essays, for example, „Sights from a Steeple,“ „Sunday; Home,“ „Little Annie’s Ramble,“ „A Rill from the Town. Pump,“ „The Toll-Gatherer’s Day,“ „The Haunted Mind,“ „The Sister Years,“ „Snow-Flakes,“ „Night Sketches,“ and „Foot-Prints on the Sea-Shore.“ We mention these matters chiefly on account of their discrepancy with that marked precision and finish by which the body of the work is distinguished.
