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Nathaniel Hawthorne

9 free books by Nathaniel Hawthorne. 9 you can read right here.

Born 1804 in Salem · Died 1864 in Plymouth

writer, novelist · United States · associated with Romanticism

Notable works: The Scarlet Letter, Little Daffydowndilly, and other stories, The House of the Seven Gables, A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys, Tales of the White Hills, and sketches

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Facts from Wikidata (Q69339), retrieved 2026-09-26.

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Short stories and shorter works by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Quotes from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s books

Verified word for word in the text: each quote is copied exactly from the book’s text in this site’s reader (the Project Gutenberg e-text named under each book) and links to its passage; when this page was built, every quote was checked word for word against that text. How RedLectern is built.

The Scarlet Letter

From Project Gutenberg e-text #33 (public domain in the USA).

No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.

XX. THE MINISTER IN A MAZERead in context →

Among many morals which press upon us from the poor minister’s miserable experience, we put only this into a sentence:—“Be true! Be true! Be true! Show freely to the world, if not your worst, yet some trait whereby the worst may be inferred!”

XXIV. CONCLUSIONRead in context →

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The Marble Faun; Or, The Romance of Monte Beni - Volume 1

From Project Gutenberg e-text #2181 (public domain in the USA).

It is the surest test of genuine love, that it brings back our early simplicity to the worldliest of us.

— Spoken by a character · XII. A STROLL ON THE PINCIAN

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