About The Author

Nathaniel Hawthorne
1804-1865

Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts. Hawthorne’s father was a sea captain and a descendant of one of the judges from the Salem Witchcraft Trials. Nathaniel’s father died when Nathaniel was only four years old. His mother lived a very secluded lifestyle. The Hawthorne family moved from Salem to Maine, where Nathaniel attended Bowdoin College. From 1825-1836 Hawthorne was a writer and contributor to periodicals. The first book that Hawthorne wrote he burned after the book was turned down by a publishing company.
In 1842 Hawthorne married Sophia Peabody. Hawthorne and his wife started a family together in Concord but after building up a surmountable amount of debt they moved back to Salem. In 1846, Hawthorne decided to get another job because writing was not helping support his family. He was appointed surveyor of the Port of Salem. Hawthorne kept that job for three years until he was fired. Hawthorne went back to his writing. Hawthorne was truly the first American author to use allegory. Through his life, Hawthorne was friend with some of the best American authors. Hawthorne, like his good friend Edger Allan Poe, wrote of a dark view of human nature.


"Not to be deficient in this particular, the author has provided himself with a moral - the truth, namely, that the wrongdoing of one generation lives into the successive ones." (from The House of the Seven Gables)