The Nathaniel Hawthorne Audio Collection

By: Nathaniel Hawthorne

Narrated by: James Naughton

Length: 5 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's Summary

On July 28, 1851, Nathaniel Hawthorne's wife left their house in Western Massachusetts to visit relatives. Hawthorne and his 5-year-old son Julian stayed behind. How father and son got on together for the next three weeks is the subject of Twenty Days with Julian & Little Bunny, by Papa, a tender and funny extract from Hawthorne's notebooks, perhaps one of the earliest accounts in literature of a father caring for a young child.

Each day starts early and will be given over to swimming and skipping stones, berry picking and subduing armies of thistles. At one point Mr. Herman Melville comes over to enjoy a late night discussion of eternity over cigars.

With an introduction by Paul Auster, this delightful true-life story by a great American writer emerges from obscurity to shine a delightful light upon family life, then and now. The collection also includes Hawthorne's short stories "Young Goodman Brown," "The Minister's Black Veil," and "Rappaccini's Daughter."

©1996 HarperCollins Publishers

Critic Reviews

"Auster, the critically acclaimed author, is also a wonderful reader. No dialects and voices - instead, he reads his own introduction and 'Twenty Days' with his trademark seductive voice and precise control. James Naughton does as well with the Hawthorne short stories. His careful pace and full baritone offer comfort during the stories’ menacing passages. This is a class act." (AudioFile)