Hawthorne's fiction

The centennial of Nathaniel Hawthorne's death was marked by a new edition for Richard Harter Fogle's now standard work on Hawthorne's fiction. Additional critical interpretations have been incorporated in this revised and expanded edition and essays added on "My Kinsman, Major Molineux" and "The Birthmark," two short stories which have become increasingly important in Hawthorne criticism. Mr. Fogle believes Hawthorne can best be described in a series of antitheses: simplicity and complexity, light and darkness, clarity and ambiguity, appearance and reality; and that only by defining these antitheses can one arrive at a truly unified approach to the great New Englander"--Jacket.