NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE LIFE AND WORKS

Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts in 1804.

His father was a sea captain and descendent of John Hawthorne, one of the judges in the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692. He died when the young Nathaniel was four year old. Hawthorne grew up in seclusion with his widowed mother - and for the rest of her life they relied on each other for emotional solace. Between the years 1825 and 1836 Hawthorne worked as a writer and contributor to periodicals. He married in 1842 Sophia Peabody, an active participant in the Transcendentalist movement, and settled with her in Concord. A growing family and mounting debts compelled their return to Salem. Hawthorne was unable to earn a living as a writer and in 1846 he was appointed surveyor of the Port of Salem, where he worked for three years. Hawthorne died at Plymouth, New Hampshire, on May 18th, 1864.

His main works:

THE SCARLET LETTER (downloadable book)
Drama
The main action of The Scarlet Letter, the illicit love affair of Hester Prynne with the Reverend Arhur Dimmesdale and the birth of their child Pearl, takes place before the book opens. In Puritan New England, Hester, the mother of an illegitimate child, wears the scarlet A (for adulteress, named in the book by this initial) for years rather than reveal that her lover was the saintly young village minister. Her husband, Roger Chillingworth, proceeds to torment the guiltstricken man, who confesses his adultery before dying in Hester's arms. Hester plans to take her daughter Pearl to Europe to begin a new life.


THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES (downloadable book)
Fiction
An evil house, cursed through the centuries by a man who was hanged for witchcraft, is haunted by the ghosts of its sinful dead, wracked by the fear of its frightened living. Written as a follow-up to "The Scarlet Letter", The House of the Seven Gables is truly a masterful blending of the actual and the imaginary.