A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys

A Wonder-book for Girls and Boys - is a children's book by American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, in which he retells some of the Greek myths. Nathaniel Hawthorne has long believed that many classical Greek myths can be turned into very interesting children's reading. In this little tome, he has processed half a dozen of them for this purpose. His plan required more freedom of treatment; but anyone who tries to make these legends malleable in his intellectual furnace will notice that they are surprisingly independent of all temporal modes and circumstances. In the current version, these myths may have lost much of their classical aspect (or, in any case, the author did not bother to preserve it) and may have taken on a Gothic or romantic aspect. In doing this enjoyable task - as it was indeed a hot-weather task and one of the most enjoyable literary tasks he had ever undertaken - the author did not always find it necessary to write in descending order to satisfy children's understanding. He usually let the subject float whenever it was inclined and when he was mobile enough to follow her effortlessly. Children have an invaluable sensitivity to anything that is deep or high in imagination or feeling, if that is just as simple. They are confused only by the artificial and the complex. These are stories within a story. The story of the shot is that Eunice Bright, a college student, tells these tales to a group of children in Tanglewood, a neighborhood in Lenox, Massachusetts, where Hawthorne himself lived for a time. All fairy tales are modified versions of ancient Greek myths: The Gorgon's Head; The Golden Touch; The Paradise of Children; The Three Golden Apples; The Miraculous Pitcher; The Chimæra.