Nathaniel Hawthorne has 23 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 28 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.4★ across 28 ratings. The most-rated is The Scarlet Letter.
The Scarlet Letter
Summary
One of the most important novels in classic literature, Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter tackles the subject of adultery, with the notorious Hester Prynne at the forefront of the scandal in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In the beginning of the novel, Hester is serving time in prison for having a child out of wedlock and is forced to wear a scarlet A on her clothing at all times, so she cannot run from her sin no matter where she goes. Her husband has been away for around two years, and she refuses to name the father of her daughter, Pearl. The father is actually Reverend Dimmesdale, a timid man who keeps his secret from the community. Hester's husband returns to the colony, where he finds out what has happened and makes it his personal goal to torment the father of Pearl. He discovers that it is Dimmesdale and tries to intimidate him. The pressure becomes too much for Dimmesdale, and after seven years of torture the reverend eventually admits what he has done and dies before a crowd of people. Not long after, Hester's husband also passes away, leaving Hester and her daughter enough money to escape the colony and finally have some peace. At the end, however, Hester decides to come back to the colony, and when she passes away, she is buried next to the reverend, with whom she had been in love.
Public Domain (P)2015 A.R.N. Publications
The Scarlet Letter
Summary
The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, magnum opus, tells the story of Hester Prynne, who gives birth two years after separation from her husband and is condemned to wear the scarlet letter A on her breast as punishment for her adultery. She resists all attempts of the 17th century Boston clergy to make her reveal the name of her child’s father while she struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity.
Public Domain (P)2011 Cherry Hill Publishing
The Scarlet Letter
Summary
The Scarlet Letter: A Romance, an 1850 novel, is a work of historical fiction written by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne. The book is considered to be his "masterwork." Set in 17th-century Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony, during the years 1642 to 1649, it tells the story of Hester Prynne, who conceives a daughter through an affair and struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity. Throughout the book, Hawthorne explores themes of legalism, sin, and guilt.
Public Domain (P)2017 Paperless
The House of the Seven Gables
Summary
In a sleepy little New England village stands a dark, weather-beaten, many-gabled house. This brooding mansion is haunted by a centuries-old curse that casts the shadow of ancestral sin upon the last four members of the distinctive Pyncheon family of Salem. The greed and haughty pride of the Pyncheon family through the generations is mirrored in the gloomy decay of their seven-gabled mansion, where the family's enfeebled and impoverished relations now live. Mysterious deaths threaten the living. Musty documents nestle behind hidden panels carrying the secret of the family's salvation - or its downfall. A brilliant intertwining of the popular, the symbolic, and the historical, Hawthorne's Gothic romance is a powerful exploration of personal and national guilt, a work that Henry James declared "the closest approach we are likely to have to the Great American Novel".
Public Domain (P)2008 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Young Goodman Brown
Summary
How long would you walk, if the Devil sauntered up to you of an evening, and journeyed alongside of you? Young Goodman Brown is led by the Devil to a midnight ritual, where fire, blood, and water change his opinions of the nature of humanity.
Public Domain (P)2008 B.J. Harrison
The Scarlet Letter
Summary
The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not to tread. Shame, despair, solitude! These had been her teachers - stern and wild ones - and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss. (Nathaniel Hawthorne) As she emerges from the prison of a Puritan New England town, Hester Prynne defies the dark gloom much as the rose blooms against the prison door. With her illegitimate baby, Pearl, clutched in her arms and the letter A - the mark of an adulteress - embroidered in scarlet thread on her breast, Hester holds her head high as she faces the malice and scorn of the townsfolk. Her powerful, bittersweet story is an American classic that continues to touch the hearts of modern readers with its timeless themes of guilt, passion and repentance. Nathaniel Hawthorne was a novelist and short story writer, a central figure in the American Renaissance. Nathaniel Hawthorne's best-known works include The Scarlet Letter (1850) and The House of Seven Gables (1851). Like Edgar Allan Poe, Hawthorne took a dark view of human nature.
©1981 Nathaniel Hawthorne (P)2012 InAudio
The Minister's Black Veil
Summary
Basil Rathbone reads Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story about the minister of a small town who suddenly and without explanation starts to wear a black veil.
Public Domain (P)2009 Saland Publishing
Midnight Shadows
Summary
Midnight Shadows features two classics of horror and the supernatural. "Young Goodman Brown" is the chilling story of a young Puritan man who finds himself drawn into a world of witchcraft and unspeakable black magic. "The Ash Tree" is the tale of Sir Richard, who encounters an ancient tree that harbors a dark and grotesque secret.
©2006 PC Treasures, Inc. (P)2006 PC Treasures, Inc.
The Scarlet Letter
Summary
The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is considered to be one of the greatest examples of true American literature. Its excellency of topic, characterization, and description has made it a permanent part of our history. Set in Salem, Massachusetts in the 1600s, it describes the life of Hester Prynne, a Puritan woman whose existence is marred by sin. The real genius of the book is found in its description. Hawthorne makes allusion, symbolism, and romanticism work toward one effect, making the reader feel as if she was there, watching it all happen, living through Hester's struggle.
Public Domain (P)2010 Hudson Audio Publishing
Tanglewood Tales
Summary
Nathaniel Hawthorne masterfully grabs the imagination of children with these timeless tales of adventure based on the incomparable Greek mythological heroes' escapades. Children will enter a world of magic and intrigue as they face ferocious beasts, clever enchantresses, and tricky gods, alongside the greatest heroes of all time. Will Theseus escape from the maze that is guarded by the awful Minotaur? Can Jason steal the Golden Fleece from under the nose and claws of a vicious dragon? Can Odysseus outsmart the witch whose potion has turned his men into pigs? And will Cadmus rescue his sister from the bull who has kidnapped her - and who turns out to be none other than mighty Zeus himself in disguise? Find out in this enchanting retelling of the classic tales, spun by an American master.
Public Domain (P)2004 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Mystery, Mirth, and Murder
Summary
Listening to great writing is a pleasure unto itself. Sometimes the opening paragraph of a work, or even the first sentence, makes it obvious that you are in the hands of a master, and once venturing a few furtive steps onto the path of prose, no matter what forest it enters, valley it descends, or mountain it scales, you will walk the entire distance. Each story in this collection thus endures for a reason. Though the tales may go from macabre to merry, from black comedy to fabulist, they are each wonderfully written, and for this reason are still being listened to more than a century and a half after their first publication.
©2020 Daniel Adam Day (P)2020 Daniel Adam Day
Victorian Anthologies: Horror - Volume 1
Summary
Few horror stories are as chilling as the ones written by Victorian writers. This collection of eight enduring stories, some well-known, others less familiar, carry you to all corners of the world where terrors lurk. Featuring work by H.P. Lovecraft, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Edgar Allan Poe and Vernon Lee, experience the skin-crawling undead, a pestilence that leaves no one unaffected, imagined horrors that emerge from disturbed minds and others that require no imagination at all....
©2019 B7 Productions (P)2019 B7 Productions
La lettera scarlatta
Summary
Pubblicato nel 1850, "La lettera scarlatta" è uno dei più importanti romanzi nordamericani dell'Ottocento. Nelle intenzioni dell'autore esso doveva rappresentare al meglio lo spirito puritano dell'epoca coloniale americana. Nella società puritana la libertà dell'individuo coincideva con il bene della comunità, che doveva essere purificata da ogni elemento estraneo, considerato al soldo di Satana. Per questa ragione le autorità imponevano stili di vita improntati a un inflessibile rigore morale. E chi infrangeva gravemente le regole poteva incorrere persino nella pena di morte. Nell'audiolibro una giovane sposa, amante del pastore Arthur Dimmesdale, manifesta fisicamente i segni della sua relazione extraconiugale con il predicatore. Nulla riesce a farla confessare, nemmeno le minacce, e per questo viene schivata da tutti, e infine condannata a portare sul petto una fiammante lettera A, che la additi allo sguardo pubblico come un'adultera. Intorno a questa vicenda si dipana il progressivo insinuarsi nei personaggi di un tormentato lavorio psichico, che li spingerà, in taluni casi, sull'orlo della pazzia. Il testo è stato fonte di ispirazione per numerose trasposizioni cinematografiche.
©Per la traduzione italiana: Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Editore. Tradotto da Enrico Terrinoni (P)2019 Audible Studios
The Scarlet Letter
Summary
This is a new edition of Nathaniel Hawthorne's masterpiece The Scarlet Letter. The story of Hester Prynne - the first great female character in American literature - is brought to life by narrator Amanda Brewer.
Public Domain (P)2018 Sam Torode
The Birthmark
Summary
Hawthorne approached the Romantic notion of the ability of science to destroy art (or beauty) in the form of fictive "horror stories" of biological research out of control. This story is the best of that group. A devoted scientist marries a beautiful woman with a single physical flaw: a birthmark on her face. Aylmer becomes obsessed with the imperfection and his attempts to remove it via his scientific skills, thus rendering his bride perfect.
©1984 Jimcin Recordings (P)1984 Jimcin Recordings
Pegasus, The Winged Horse
Summary
Pegasus, The Winged Horse is Nathaniel Hawthorne's retelling of the Greek myth of Pegasus and Bellerophon, who wanted to fly with Pegasus to Olympus, the home of the gods. Bellerophon fell back to earth, but the winged horse reached Olympus. Pegasus was then appointed as a transporter of thunderbolts for Zeus. Museum Audiobooks strives to present audiobook versions of authentic, unabridged historical texts from prior eras which contain a variety of points of view. The texts do not represent the views or opinions of Museum Audiobooks, and in certain cases may contain perspectives or language that is objectionable to the modern listener.
Public Domain (P)2019 Museum Audiobooks
Das alte Pfarrhaus
Summary
Nathaniel Hawthorne schrieb diesen Text ursprünglich als Vorwort für einen Band mit Erzählungen. Autobiografische Gedankenreise und beeindruckende Landschaftsbeschreibungen gehen in dem virtuosen und erstaunlich modern anmutenden Erzählessay Hand in Hand. Ein literaturhistorisches Juwel. Regie: Michael Utz. Der Originaltext The Old Manse erschien erstmals 1846 als Vorwort des Bandes "Mosses from an Old Manse".
©2011 Hoffmann und Campe Verlag, Hamburg. Übersetzung von Karl-Heinz Ott (P)2011 SWR
![Cover art for El Ferrocarril Celestial [The Celestial Railroad]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51DTC8+tPnL._SL500_.jpg)
El Ferrocarril Celestial [The Celestial Railroad]
Summary
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) Fue un novelista y cuentista estadounidense considerado figura clave en el desarrollo de la literatura norteamericana. Nathaniel Hawthorne, nacido bajo el nombre de Nathaniel Hathorne, nació el 4 de julio de 1804 en la ciudad de Salem, Massachussets (EEUU) en una familia de tradición puritana. Hawthorne trabajó en la aduana del puerto de Boston. Se casó con la pintora Sophia Peabody. Hawthorne tuvo una intensa amistad con el novelista Herman Melville, quien le dedicó su gran obra Moby Dick, “en homenaje a su genio”. Su contemporáneo Edgar Allan Poe dedicó célebres reseñas a sus colecciones más importantes. Hawthorne es conocido sobre todo por sus relatos breves, muchas veces de contenido siniestro, al gusto de la época, y por sus cuatros novelas largas. La letra escarlata, La casa de los siete tejados, La novela de Blithedale y El fauno de mármol. Fue nombrado cónsul norteamericano en Liverpool (1853). Viajó por Francia e Italia y regresó a su país en 1860. Cayó enfermo poco después, probablemente de cáncer de estómago, muriendo el 19 de mayo de 1864, a los 59 años de edad, en Plymouth, New Hampshire (EEUU). Please note: This audiobook is in Spanish.
©2010 NEAR, S.A. (P)2010 NEAR, S.A.
Young Goodman Brown
Summary
The famous story of a mysterious nighttime journey where Young Goodman Brown contends with elderly witches, devil worshipers, a Black Mass, and a showdown with the Devil himself. Like so many of Nathaniel Hawthorne's short stories and novels, "Young Goodman Brown" takes place in Puritan New England, specifically in Salem, Massachusetts, during the infamous witch trials, during which dozens of women and men were accused of witchcraft and executed in grisly fashion. Part parable, part horror fiction, the story of Goodman Brown is one of gaining knowledge of good and evil, of learning that good and evil are not always visible simply by their appearance and so can lurk anywhere. Stephen King has referred to the story as "one of the ten best stories written by an American". Oscar nominated and Emmy Award-winning special-effects artist Edward E. French narrates this early American tale of the supernatural.
Public Domain (P)2020 Edward E. French
The Marble Faun
Summary
The Marble Faun of 1860 was the last of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s four major romances. Set in Italy, the narrative blends elements of the travel guide, fable, and gothic novel. The main characters include Miriam, a beautiful painter with a mysterious past who is compared to Beatrice, Cleopatra and Eve, and Hilda, an innocent young woman with strong moral principles. The sculptor Kenyon has an eye for Hilda, whilst Donatello, the Count of Monte Beni, is besotted by Miriam. Donatello bears a resemblance to the statue type called the Faun of Praxiteles. Themes of fragility and transience dominate, and the story is seasoned by cinematic descriptions of classic sites that made the book a travel guide to Rome for Victorian tourists.
©Public Domain (P)2020 Museum Audiobooks