The text of this edition is that of The Centenary Edition of the Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Volume II (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1965), which for the most part follows the manuscript Hawthorne submitted to his publisher for typesetting, now in the collection of Houghton Library at Harvard University. It substitutes readings from the first edition when these seem to be proof-corrections made by Hawthorne rather than typesetters’ errors; no corrected proofs of The House of the Seven Gables survive. For a detailed account of the principles underlying the Centenary Edition of The House of the Seven Gables, see the ‘Textual Introduction’ by Fredson Bowers (CE, II, pp. xxix–lx).