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<Text id=HawGabl>
<Author>Hawthorne, Nathaniel</Author>
<Title>The House of the Seven Gables</Title>
<Edition>Novels. Library of America. New York: Literary Classics of the U.S., 1983</Edition>
<Date>1851</Date>
<body>
<loc><locdoc>HawGabl351</locdoc><milestone n=351>
<div0 type=chapter n=Preface>
<l> <i>Preface</i> </l>
<p>When a writer calls his work a Romance, it need
hardly be observed that he wishes to claim a certain
latitude, both as to its fashion and material, which he
would not have felt himself entitled to assume, had he
professed to be writing a Novel. The latter form of
composition is presumed to aim at a very minute fidelity,
not merely to the possible, but to the probable and ordinary
course of man's experience. The former -- while, as a work
of art, it must rigidly subject itself to laws, and while it
sins unpardonably, so far as it may swerve aside from the
truth of the human heart -- has fairly a right to present
that truth under circum . . .
