The Christmas Banquet (Illustrated Edition)

This is a VERY funny short story; every year the ten most miserable people in town are invited to a Christmas banquet. Their misery is shared alongside the holiday feast, and every year, an increasingly wretched Gervayse Hastings makes his appearance. Over time, all the other guests seem to have grown in character and risen above their sad condition, except of course, Mr. Hastings.

Hawthorne devotes much of the text to the three lengthy descriptions of the various party guests and their maladies; these sections are sharp and hilarious. The driving force throughout the story is the mystery surrounding Gervayse Hastings’ gloom. He seems to all other invitees to be a happy, well-adjusted, successful man of the world. So why does he keep getting invited to the doom room? The unanswered question keeps the reader reading.

Author Nathaniel Hawthorne originally subtitled this anti-Christmas tale "An Allegory of the Human Heart." "A Christmas Banquet" might sit in stark contrast to other classics like Dickens' A Christmas Carol, but it serves as a reminder that the holidays can be a time of human suffering and loneliness as well as joy and good tidings.

This edition of the book contains 10 Christmas illustrations that are unique to this edition of the book.

Nathaniel Hawthorne; born Nathaniel Hathorne; July 4, 1804 – May 19, 1864) was an American novelist, Dark Romantic, and short story writer.

He was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, to Nathaniel Hathorne and the former Elizabeth Clarke Manning. His ancestors include John Hathorne, the only judge involved in the Salem witch trials who never repented of his actions. Nathaniel later added a "w" to make his name "Hawthorne" in order to hide this relation. He entered Bowdoin College in 1821, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in 1824, and graduated in 1825. Hawthorne published his first work, a novel titled Fanshawe, in 1828; he later tried to suppress it, feeling it was not equal to the standard of his later work. He published several short stories in periodicals, which he collected in 1837 as Twice-Told Tales. The next year, he became engaged to Sophia Peabody. He worked at the Boston Custom House and joined Brook Farm, a transcendentalist community, before marrying Peabody in 1842. The couple moved to The Old Manse in Concord, Massachusetts, later moving to Salem, the Berkshires, then to The Wayside in Concord. The Scarlet Letter was published in 1850, followed by a succession of other novels. A political appointment as consul took Hawthorne and family to Europe before their return to Concord in 1860. Hawthorne died on May 19, 1864, and was survived by his wife and their three children.