The Great Stone Face

THE first three numbers in this collection are tales of the White Hills in New Hampshire. The passages from Sketches from Memory show that Hawthorne had visited the mountains in one of his occasional rambles from home, but there are no entries in his Note Books which give accounts of such a visit. There is, however, among these notes the following interesting paragraph, written in 1840 and clearly foreshadowing The Great Stone Face: 'The semblance of a human face to be formed on the side of a mountain, or in the fracture of a small stone, by a lusus naturae [freak of nature]. The face is an object of curiosity for years or centuries, and by and by a boy is born whose features gradually assume the aspect of that portrait. At some critical juncture the resemblance is found to be perfect. A prophecy may be connected.'

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) was an American writer, known for his historical fiction novels. 'The Scarlet Letter' (1850) is his most celebrated work and explores themes of romance, religion, and morality. He was a prominent author of the Romantic movement, and much of his work is in the literary sub-genre of dark romanticism. Feminist scholars often credit his work with highlighting long-established discrimination against women in powerful tales of female agency.