(July 4, 1804 - May 19, 1864)

Nathaniel Hawthorne called himself a writer of romances, allegorical tales of times long past with supernatural overtones. Yet many of the stories he wrote came right out of the pages of his own family history in Salem, Massachusetts. Hawthorne was still struggling to relieve himself of the heavy psychic burden of his family's past. Puritanism had shaped his first full-length romance written in 1850, The Scarlet Letter, with its emphasis on secret sin, pride, vengefulness and shame. The House of the Seven Gables, in 1851, continued to deal with this burden in its opening lines that described a witch's curse on a Puritan magistrate who choked to death on his own blood. While Hawthorne said he felt guilty for sharing the blood of not only witchcraft judge John Hathorne but also of sadistic Puritan magistrate William Hathorne—Nathaniel restored the Elizabethan 'w' to the name when he was in his twenties—he felt even more shame for not measuring up to their concept of success. These two ghosts of his Calvinist Protestant ancestors haunted Hawthorne with their creed that God rewarded His chosen people with prosperity.
 

Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts. His father, also Nathaniel, was a sea captain and descendent of John Hawthorne, one of the judges in the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692. Hawthorne carried so much guilt for his ancestor’s participation in the infamous trials that he felt compelled to change his last name, adding a "w" to change it from Hathorne to Hawthorne. When Nathaniel was four, his father died on a voyage in Surinam, Dutch Guinea. Hawthorne grew up in seclusion with his widowed mother Elizabeth - and for the rest of her life they relied on each other for emotional comfort. Later he wrote to his friend Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: "I have locked myself in a dungeon and I can't find the key to get out." Hawthorne was educated at the Bowdoin College in Maine (1821-24). Among his classmates were many of the important literary and political figures of the day: writer Horatio Bridge, future Senator Jonathan Ciley, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and future President Franklin Pierce. These prominent friends supplied Hawthorne with government employment in the lean times, allowing him time to bloom as an author. In 1842 Hawthorne became friends with the Transcendentalists in Concord, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, who also drew on the Puritan legacy. However, generally he did not have much confidence in intellectuals and artists, and eventually he had to admit, that "the treasure of intellectual gold" did not provide food for his family. Hawthorne later joined the transcendentalist community called Brookwood Farm at the urging of  of his writer friends. He eventually left, disillusioned, and joined the ranks of the anti-transcendentalists. Hawthorne married a woman named Sophia Peabody, but didn’t seem to have a high opinion of women writers of the time.

Nathaniel Hawthorne's four earliest surviving short stories were written for a never to be published collection, Provincial Tales, which Hawthorne attempted to publish in 1829. They eventually were published in 1831, as a group. All four of the tales deal with early Massachusetts, and are written in a much more naturalistic style than most of Hawthorne's later short stories. There is an emphasis on character, and realistically unfolding plots that is absent in Hawthorne's later, more allegorical work. This is not to say the works have no allegorical or symbolic meanings - they do. But they are all still closer to conventional fiction, and are less "Hawthornian" than the bulk of this writer's output. Hawthorne's second published story, "An Old Woman's Tale", (1830) is also first rate, a very beautiful fantasy. It seems to be an unfinished fragment of a longer work, as it ends just before a major plot revelation is to occur. Hawthorne's other brief fiction of this year, "The Hollow of the Three Hills", is a grim but powerful tale of witchcraft. I didn't like it, but I have to admit the author's skill. The opening description of natural scenery is superb. Hawthorne was one of the first American writers to explore the hidden motivations of his characters. The House of the Seven Gables is a story based on the legend of a curse pronounced on Hawthorne's own family by a woman, who was condemned to death during the Salem witchcraft trials. The curse is mirrored in the decay of the Pyncheons' seven-gabled mansion. Finally the descendant of the killed woman marries a young niece of the family, and the hereditary sin ends. This is Hawthorne's most popular work. Nathaniel Hawthorne died at Plymouth, New Hampshire, on May 18th, 1864.