Wakefield, a cold and selfish man, one day decides (for no reason) to leave home, disguise himself, take lodgings near his house, and watch what his wife does when he fails to come back. While she settles into contented life without him, he lives like a hermit for many years, eventually realizing that he has given up "his place and privileges with living men, without being admitted among the dead."
First published (as by "the author of The Gray Champion") in the New England Magazine, June 1835. This story is not supernatural, but has a certain degree of the fantastic to it.
| Date | Publication | Publisher | Type | Page | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1837 |
|
Twice-Told Tales | American Stationers Co. | Collection | 185 |
| 1842 | Twice-Told Tales | James Munroe | Collection | |9 | |
| 1875 |
|
Intellect | James R. Osgood and Co. | Anthology | 134 |
| 1897 | Little Masterpieces | Doubleday & McClure | Collection | 83 | |
| 1898 | Little Masterpieces | Doubleday & McClure | Collection | 83 | |
| 1907 |
|
Twice-Told Tales | Houghton Mifflin | Collection | 153 |
| 1922 | Hawthorne | Doubleday, Page & Company | Collection | |4 | |
| 1937 |
|
The Complete Novels and Selected Tales of Nathaniel Hawthorne | Modern Library | Omnibus | 920 |
| 1946 |
|
Strange and Fantastic Stories: Fifty Tales of Terror, Horror and Fantasy | Whittlesey House | Anthology | 262 |
| 1946 |
|
Shocking Tales | Current Books / A. A. Wyn | Anthology | 6 |
| 1950 | Selected Tales and Sketches | Rinehart | Collection | |8 | |
| 1962 |
|
Hawthorne's Short Stories | Dodd, Mead & Co. | Collection | |6 |
| 1963 |
|
The Celestial Railroad and Other Stories | Signet / New American Library | Collection | |
| 1965 |
|
Twice-Told Tales | Airmont Books | Collection | 76 |
| 1968 |
|
The Birthmark and Other Stories | Scholastic Book Services | Collection | |
| 1968 |
|
The Birthmark and Other Stories | Scholastic Book Services | Collection | |
| 1970 |
|
Selected Tales and Sketches | Holt, Rinehart and Winston | Collection | 164 |
| 1982 |
|
Tales and Sketches | The Library of America | Omnibus | 290 |
| 1987 |
|
Selected Tales and Sketches | Penguin Books (US) | Collection | 149 |
| October 1989 |
|
Twice-Told Tales | Reader's Digest | Collection | 26 |
| May 1999 |
|
Dr. Heidegger's Experiment and Other Stories | Könemann | Collection | 121 |
| 2001 |
|
Twice-Told Tales | Modern Library | Collection | 97 |
| October 2004 | Twice-Told Tales | Project Gutenberg | Collection | 123 | |
| 2007 | Tales and Sketches | The Library of America | Omnibus | |290 | |
| August 2010 |
|
Twice-Told Tales | Gray Rabbit Publications | Collection | 82 |
| December 2011 |
|
The Collected Supernatural and Weird Fiction of Nathaniel Hawthorne: Volume 3 | Leonaur Ltd | Collection | |
| December 2011 |
|
The Collected Supernatural and Weird Fiction of Nathaniel Hawthorne: Volume 3 | Leonaur Ltd | Collection | |
| June 2012 |
|
Twice-Told Tales | ReadHowYouWant | Collection | 289 |
| June 2021 | Nota do Tradutor, June 2021 | Revista de Tradução Literária e Biblioteca Digital | MAGAZINE |