It is a little remarkable, that--though disinclined to talk overmuch of myself and my affairs at the fireside,ana to my personal menas an autobiograplalcal impulse should twice in my life have taken possession of me in addressing the public. The first time was three or four years since, when I favored the reader--inexcusably, and for no earthly reason that either the indulgent reader or the intrusive author could imagine--with a description of my way of life in the deep quietude of an Old Manse.l And now--because, beyond my deserts, I washappy enough to find a listener or two on the former occasion--'I again seize the public by the button, and talk of my three years' experience in a Custom House. The example of the famous "P. P.,Clerk of this Parish" was never more faithfully followed. ...

These four landmark novels of nineteenth-century American literature have gained a permanent place in our culture as great classics. They are not only part of our national heritage but masterpieces of world literature whose deep and lasting influence is felt to this day.

The Scarlet Letter vividly records America's moral and historical roots in Puritan New England and masterfully re-creates a society's preoccupation with sin, guilt, and pride.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn carries readers along on Huck's unforgettable journey down the Mississippi in America's foremost comic epic-- the first great novel in a truly American voice.

The Red Badge of Courage re-creates the brutal reality of war and its psychological impact on a young Civil War soldier in one of the most moving and widely read American novels.

Billy Budd, Sailor joins the world's great tragic literature as a doomed seaman becomes the innocent victim of a clash between social authority and individual freedom.