Audiobook · read by volunteers
House of the Seven Gables (Version 2)
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864)
Read by Nicodemus, Xe Sands · 22 chapters · 10 h 57
About the book
The House of the Seven Gables is a dark old mansion in New England, built on a crime and weighed down by the memory of an ancient curse. Within it live Hepzibah Pyncheon, a proud and impoverished spinster who has just opened a small shop to keep the household afloat, and soon her brother Clifford, returning after years away. Into the house come a young cousin, Phoebe, whose cheerful presence lights the rooms, and a lodger with secrets of his own. Nathaniel Hawthorne mixes realistic detail with a touch of the supernatural, and he treats family, guilt and inheritance with his characteristic seriousness. Gloomy but lit by humour and tenderness, the story is a masterpiece of American romance. This is a second reading of the book, shared by two voices. Two voices carry the shadowy, richly detailed tale.
Introduction
Nathaniel Hawthorne, who lived from 1804 to 1864, is among the great figures of American literature, remembered for The Scarlet Letter and for his stories of Puritan New England. He published The House of the Seven Gables in 1851, and it is often placed beside the earlier novel as one of his finest works. Hawthorne came from Salem, Massachusetts, and one of his ancestors had been a judge at the witch trials there; the theme of inherited guilt appears throughout his writing, and this book is perhaps its fullest treatment.
The novel is set in a house that has stood for generations. Its history of wrongdoing seems to follow the descendants of the family who built it, and the present is shaped by what happened long ago. Hawthorne himself called the book a romance rather than a novel, by which he meant that he allowed himself some freedom to mix the real with the imaginary, and the atmosphere is rich with symbols and shadows.
This recording is described as Version 2, which means that LibriVox has produced more than one reading of the same text. It has 22 chapters, running for about eleven hours, and it is read by two volunteers. The pace is unhurried, as is Hawthorne’s own. It is a good book for a long winter, and it rewards patient listening with a story that is by turns eerie, comic and deeply humane. The book is full of vivid scenes, from the little shop to the garden, and of strong characters who remain in the mind. Its quiet menace and its moments of comedy make it a rewarding choice for anyone who enjoys atmospheric fiction in the older American manner.
Public domain
Nathaniel Hawthorne died in 1864: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text