Mosses From An Old Manse And Other Stories

Mosses from an Old Manse, collection of short stories byNathaniel Hawthorne, published in two volumes in 1846. The 25 tales and sketches of this volume—written while Hawthorne lived at the Old Manse in Concord, Mass., the home ofRalph Waldo Emerson's ancestors—include some of the author's finest short works. Many of theRomanticthemes found in Hawthorne's longer fiction are addressed in the stories—for example, the conflict between reason and emotion in the Gothic tales “Rappaccini's Daughter” and “The Birthmark” and betweenPuritanreligion and thesupernaturalin “Young Goodman Brown.” Also noteworthy are the title essay describing the parsonage and “Roger Malvin's Burial,” a historical tale.