Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories

First published in 1846 in the present form, famous English story writer Nathaniel Hawthorne's book 'Mosses from an Old Manse, and Other Stories' is a collection of fictional short stories. The collection includes several previously-published short stories, and was named in honor of The Old Manse where Hawthorne and his wife lived for the first three years of their marriage. The first edition was published in 1846. Hawthorne seems to have been paid $75 for the publication. Many of the tales collected in Mosses from an Old Manse are allegories and, typical of Hawthorne, focus on the negative side of human nature. Hawthorne's friend Herman Melville noted this aspect in his review ""Hawthorne and His Mosses"" ""This black conceit pervades him through and through. You may be witched by his sunlight, -transported by the bright gildings in the skies he builds over you; but there is the blackness of darkness beyond; and even his bright gildings but fringe and play upon the edges of thunder-clouds.""