What Do I Read Next?
Nathaniel Hawthorne's renowned novel, The Scarlet Letter (1850), revolves around Hester Prynne, a young woman who faces the condemnation of her strict Puritan community after becoming pregnant and refusing to disclose the father's identity.
In Hawthorne's 1835 short story, "The Minister's Black Veil," Reverend Hooper, the protagonist, shares similarities with other Hawthorne characters. He is deeply preoccupied with sin and guilt and chooses to publicly display his awareness of human evil. The narrative is set in a seventeenth-century New England parish, where the minister appears at a Sunday morning service wearing a black veil.
Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" (1843) is considered one of his finest psychological horror stories. It narrates the tale of a murderer who conceals his victim's body under his apartment floor, only to be tormented by the incessant sound of a beating heart.
Stephen Vincent Benet's "The Devil and Daniel Webster" (1937) is an O. Henry Memorial Award-winning story about Jabez Stone, a farmer who sells his soul to the Devil, who deceitfully poses as a lawyer. During the trial, Stone is defended by the famous New England lawyer Daniel Webster, while the judge presiding over the case is Nathaniel Hawthorne.
"The Devil and his Grandmother," by Jacob Ludwig Grimm and Wilhelm Carl Grimm (1812), is part of the classic collection known as Grimm's Fairy Tales. The German brothers compiled these stories from the oral traditions of common villagers. In this particular tale, three deserter soldiers serve the Devil for seven years and must solve a riddle to avoid becoming his property. They are ultimately assisted by the Devil's grandmother.
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