Hawthorne's first Wonder Book was so well received that he was induced to undertake another within eighteen months from the time of finishing the first. To this new volume, made up in the same way of Greek myths retold with a modern, free, half-realistic and half-fanciful tone, he gave the name Tanglewood Tales. The previous series having been ostensibly narrated by one Eustace Bright, among the hills of Berkshire, these additional stories in the like vein were represented as having been brought by Eustace Bright to Hawthorne. -- from George Parsons Lathrop's Introduction