Here is the conclusion to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s tale of guilt and sin in colonial New England. THE MINISTER’S BLACK VEIL Part 3 of 3 by Nathaniel Hawthorne From that time no attempts were made to remove Mr. Hooper’s black veil, or, by a direct appeal, to discover the secret which it was supposed to hide. […]

Here is the second installment of Hawthorne’s seminal short story, “The Minister’s Black Veil”. Part 1 can be found here. This section is the most poignant part of the story, because it shows in a very personal way the human cost of guilt and secrecy. In a technical sense, it is brilliant, and for several […]

When “short story studies” first became a subject in university English Lit departments in the 1960s, there was no author more scrutinized than Nathaniel Hawthorne, and no story more studied and critiqued than the one commencing below. It isn’t exactly a mystery story, although it contains a mystery, and it isn’t exactly a crime story, […]

Here is something of a companion piece to the Surprise Witness column of December 22, which described safe-cracking in the 19th century. It was recommended by the same source, the indefatigable Rob Lopresti. —JLW THE McWILLIAMSES AND THE BURGLAR ALARM by Mark Twain The conversation drifted smoothly and pleasantly along from weather to crops, from […]

When I think of Christmas, only one poem leaps to mind. I didn’t want to write yet another parody of Clement Clarke Moore’s “A Visit from St. Nicholas” (so many have done it much better than I could attempt). Thinking our Criminal Brief readership would like to read an actual short story, I decided perhaps […]

Our guest columnist today is John R. Corrigan, who teaches AP English and Mystery Literature at the Pomfret School in Pomfret, Connecticut. A native of Augusta, Maine, he received an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Texas at El Paso. John is an avid golfer, and from 2001 to 2005 was a columnist […]

Rob Lopresti suggested the following story for today as appropriate for Halloween. As it happens, he picked one of my favorite folk tales. The illustration, by John D. Batten, appeared with the story in Jacobs’ collection, More English Fairy Tales, first published in 1894. —JLW THE KING O’ THE CATS retold by John Jacobs One […]