This set comprises 40 volumes covering 19th and 20th century European and American authors. These volumes will be available as a complete set, mini boxed sets (by theme) or as individual volumes. This second set compliments the first 68 volume set of Critical Heritage published by Routledge in October 1995.

This individual volume covers American novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne. The 42 volumes that comprise the series covering 19th and 20th-century European and American authors are available as a complete set, mini boxed sets (by theme) or as individual volumes. The "Critical Heritage" series gathers together a large body of critical figures in literature. These selected sources include: contemporary reviews from both popular and literary media in which students can read about how "Lady's Chatterly's Lover" shocked contemporary reviewers or what Ibsen's "Doll's House" meant to the early women's movement. Little-published documentary material such as diaries and correspondence - often between authors and their publishers, as well as pieces of criticism from later periods that demonstrate how an author's reputation changed over time, are also incorporated into the text.