"Young Goodman Brown" (1835) is another Hawthorne short story of a young man on a journey. Brown leaves his wife and sets out through the forest, where he stumbles upon a witches' coven and finds his wife among them. He returns to Salem a gloomy man who has lost his faith in the goodness of humans.

Hawthorne's "The Birthmark" (1843) is an allegorical tale in which a scientist marries a woman who is perfectly beautiful except for a tiny birthmark on her cheek. Determined to remove the mark, the scientist tries several methods, finally finding a potion that erases the birthmark and kills his wife.

The Scarlet Letter (1850) is Hawthorne's great novel about the suffocating influence of Puritanism. Hester Prynne is made to wear a scarlet letter "A" on her breast as punishment for adultery, while her lover keeps his sin a...