Wonder-Book and Tanglewood Tales
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Hardcover
(Houghton Mifflin, Jan. 1, 1923)
A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys is a children's book written by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne in which he rewrites myths from Greek mythology. It was followed by a sequel, Tanglewood Tales. The stories in A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys are all stories within a story, the frame story being that a Williams College student, Eustace Bright, is telling these tales to a group of children at Tanglewood, an area in Lenox, Massachusetts, where Hawthorne lived for a time. All the tales are modified from the original myths. A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys covers the myths of The Gorgon's Head, The Golden Touch, The Paradise of Children, The Three Golden Apples, The Miraculous Pitcher, and The Chimæra Tanglewood tales includes retellings of Theseus and the Minotaur; Antaeus and the Pygmies; Dragon's Teeth; Circe's Palace, Proserpina, Ceres, Pluto, and the Pomegranate Seed; and Jason and the Golden Fleece