Hawthorne, Nathaniel (1804-1864)

Born in Salem, Massachusetts, into an old Puritan family,

Fanshawe (1828), published at his own expense

Twice-Told Tales (1837) established Hawthorne as a leading writer

1839 Hawthorne took a job as weigher in the Boston, Massachusetts, customhouse

Grandfather's Chair: A History for Youth (1841) a series of sketches of New England history for children

1841 joined the communal society at Brook Farm near Boston

1842 he married Sophia Amelia Peabody of Salem and settled in Concord, Massachusetts, in a house called the Old Manse.

Mosses from an Old Manse (1846) include “Roger Malvin's Burial,””Rappaccini's Daughter,” and “Young Goodman Brown,”

1846 as surveyor of the Salem customhouse

The Scarlet Letter (1850)

1850 Lenox, Massachusetts, where he enjoyed the friendship of the novelist Herman Melville

The House of the Seven Gables (1851)

A Wonder Book for Girls and Boys (1852)

Tanglewood Tales for Girls and Boys (1853)

The Snow-Image and Other Twice-Told Tales (1852)

The Blithedale Romance (1852)

In 1852 wrote a campaign biography of his college friend Franklin Pierce. After Pierce's election to the United States presidency, he rewarded Hawthorne with the consulship at Liverpool, England, a post Hawthorne held until 1857.

In 1858 and 1859 Hawthorne lived in Italy, collecting material for his heavily symbolic novel The Marble Faun (1860).

In 1860 returned to the United States

the unfinished novels:

Septimius Felton (1872),

The Dolliver Romance (1876),

Dr. Grimshawe's Secret (1883),

The Ancestral Footsteps (1883)

American Notebooks (1868),

English Notebooks (1870), and French and Italian Notebooks (1871).

modern psychological insight

the secret motivations in human behavior

the guilt and anxiety

the consequences of sin:

punishment due to lack of humility and overwhelming pride,

regeneration by love and atonement

most of his books are romances

the atmosphere of his scenes: allegory and symbolism

to expose “the truth of the human heart”

the emotional and intellectual ambivalence

he felt to be inseparable from the Puritan heritage of America.

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