Book excerpt: Three major conventional figures dominated Hawthorne's romances: the noble Founding Father, the "narrow Puritan," and the rebellious daughter. Daniel Bell examines the ways in which Hawthorne used these and other conventional characters to formulate his own sense of New England history. Originally published in 1971. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.