Nathaniel Hawthorne's
The Scarlet Letter
The first great American novel--an intensely charged tale of Puritan morality, hypocrisy, guilt and final painful expiation.

Mark Twain's
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
A runaway boy and a fugitive slave on a journey down the Mississippi--a work that prompted Ernest Hemingway to say, "All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn."

Stephen Crane's
The Red Badge of Courage
An unforgettable blending of vivid realism and far-reaching symbolism--the story of a Civil War soldier's initiation into battle that speaks of young men in every war.

Herman Melville's
Billy Budd
The last towering achievement of the author of Moby Dick--a taut shipboard drama and a timeless allegory of good vs. evil.

Four novels that represent the American genius at its most characteristic--and the storytelling art at its peak of power.
--back cover