The Ambitious Guest

"The Ambitious Guest" is a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne. First published in The New-England Magazine in June 1835, it was republished in the second volume of Twice-Told Tales in 1841.

A young traveler stops for the night with a family that lives in a "notch" next to a mountain. They make friendly conversation, interrupted once by the sound of a wagon carrying other travelers, and then by the sound of rocks falling from the slope. The father reassures the visitor that rockfalls happen regularly without causing harm, but that the family has a "safe place" to go in the event of a serious collapse.

Short Stories, Classics, Fiction, American, College, Horror, Literature, 19th Century