Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on July 4, 1804, in Salem, Massachusetts, a descendant of a long line of Puritan ancestors including John Hathorne, a presiding magistrate in the Salem witch trials. In order to distance himself from his family's shameful involvement in the witch trials, Hawthorne added the "w" to his last name during his early 20s. After Hawthorne graduated from Bowdin College he turned to writing. His first novel, Fanshawe, was unsuccessful. He went on to write several successful stories including: My Kinsman, Major Molineux,Roger Malvin’s Burial, and Young Goodman Brown.
At first writing didn’t earn him enough money so Hawthorne was forced to end a career, as a Boston Custom House measurer is 1839. By 1842, his writing finally took off and made him enough money to marry Sophia Peabody. The couple has three children, Una, born in 1844; Julian, born in 1846; and Rose, born in 1851.
In 1845, he devoted himself to his most famous novel, The Scarlet Letter, which was an immediate success. Hawthorne temporarily left his Salem home for a residence in Lenox, a small town in Berkshires, where he completed The House of the Seven Gables. In 1852, after the publication of The Blithedale Romance, Hawthorne returned to Concord and bought a house called Hillside.
Hawthorne passed away on May 19, 1864, in Plymouth, New Hampshire, after a long period of illness during which he suffered severe bouts of dementia. Hawthorne was buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts. Though Hawthorne was perpetually dissatisfied with his body of work, he remains lauded as one of the greatest American writers.
Links:
My Kinsman, Major Molineux
http://www.eldritchpress.org/nh/mm.html
Roger Malvin’s Burial
http://www.online-literature.com/poe/153/
Young Goodman Brown
The Scarlet Letter
http://www.online-literature.com/hawthorne/scarletletter/
The Blithedale Romance
http://www.online-literature.com/hawthorne/blithedale_romance/
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