Experience a haunting tale of love and revenge during the Revolutionary War in 'Septimius Felton'. The story follows the journey of a scholarly man, Septimius Felton, who becomes consumed by his quest for immortality after a British officer insults his beloved fiancée. When he murders the officer, he finds himself at the burial site confronted by an otherworldly creature named Sybil Dacy, who is in search of a fabled flower that grows from the graves of the unjustly killed. Fate brings these two tortured souls together, and as it turns out, the officer had left Septimius an ancient manuscript that holds the formula for an elixir of life. The recipe, however, calls for the juice of the very flower Sybil is seeking, setting off a chain of events that will alter their lives forever. This gripping novel is a tale of love, revenge, and the desire for eternal life that will keep readers captivated until the very end.

Septimius Felton by Nathaniel Hawthorne: Nathaniel Hawthorne invites readers into a world of mystery and psychological exploration in Septimius Felton. The novel follows the enigmatic protagonist on a quest for the elixir of life. Key Aspects of the Book Septimius Felton: Hawthorne weaves a tale of mystery and quest, keeping readers engaged in Septimius Felton's pursuit of the elixir of life. The novel delves into the psyche of its characters, exploring their motivations, fears, and desires. Hawthorne's narrative touches on transcendental and philosophical themes, adding layers of depth to the story. Nathaniel Hawthorne, an American novelist and short story writer of the 19th century, is known for his exploration of psychological and moral themes. Septimius Felton exemplifies his fascination with the human psyche and the quest for the unknown.

Handsome, reserved, almost frighteningly aloof until he was approached, then playful, cordial, Nathaniel Hawthorne was as mercurial and double-edged as his writing. “Deep as Dante,” Herman Melville said. Hawthorne himself declared that he was not “one of those supremely hospitable people who serve up their own hearts, delicately fried, with brain sauce, as a tidbit” for the public. Yet those who knew him best often took the opposite position. “He always puts himself in his books,” said his sister-in-law Mary Mann, “he cannot help it.” His life, like his work, was extraordinary, a play of light and shadow. In this major new biography of Hawthorne, the first in more than a decade, Brenda Wineapple, acclaimed biographer of Janet Flanner and Gertrude and Leo Stein (“Luminous”–Richard Howard), brings him brilliantly alive: an exquisite writer who shoveled dung in an attempt to found a new utopia at Brook Farm and then excoriated the community (or his attraction to it) in caustic satire; the confidant of Franklin Pierce, fourteenth president of the United States and arguably one of its worst; friend to Emerson and Thoreau and Melville who, unlike them, made fun of Abraham Lincoln and who, also unlike them, wrote compellingly of women, deeply identifying with them–he was the first major American writer to create erotic female characters. Those vibrant, independent women continue to haunt the imagination, although Hawthorne often punishes, humiliates, or kills them, as if exorcising that which enthralls. Here is the man rooted in Salem, Massachusetts, of an old pre-Revolutionary family, reared partly in the wilds of western Maine, then schooled along with Longfellow at Bowdoin College. Here are his idyllic marriage to the youngest and prettiest of the Peabody sisters and his longtime friendships, including with Margaret Fuller, the notorious feminist writer and intellectual. Here too is Hawthorne at the end of his days, revered as a genius, but considered as well to be an embarrassing puzzle by the Boston intelligentsia, isolated by fiercely held political loyalties that placed him against the Civil War and the currents of his time. Brenda Wineapple navigates the high tides and chill undercurrents of Hawthorne’s fascinating life and work with clarity, nuance, and insight. The novels and tales, the incidental writings, travel notes and children’s books, letters and diaries reverberate in this biography, which both charts and protects the dark unknowable core that is quintessentially Hawthorne. In him, the quest of his generation for an authentically American voice bears disquieting fruit.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1882.