Nathaniel Hawthorne (originally Hathorne) was an American novelist and short story writer in the Dark Romantic movement. He’s widely recognized as one of the greatest fiction writers in American literature.
Born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, Hawthorne’s roots in New England ran deep. His great-great-great-grandfather, the Puritan William Hathorne, emigrated from England, and his great-great-grandfather, John Hathorne, was one of the judges who presided over the infamous Salem witch trials. When young Nathaniel was only four, his father, a sea captain, died of yellow fever abroad. In 1816, the family moved to Maine to stay with Hawthorne’s uncle, who was adamant that Nathaniel attend college. Though he was unenthusiastic, he acceded, though he was a disinterested student during his time at Bowdoin College.
His experience in university did at least produce the inspiration for his first book, Fanshawe, which was published in 1828. Hawthorne later tried to suppress the novel, feeling that it was not on par with his other writing. He went on to write a number of short stories in periodicals, which he republished in the 1837 collection Twice-Told Tales. He published several novels, including The House of the Seven Gables, a Romance, The Blithedale Romance, and The Marble Faun, as well as seven nonfiction books, nine short story collections, and dozens of individual short stories. He also had four unfinished novels, all of which were published posthumously.
Hawthorne’s most famous book, The Scarlet Letter, was published in 1850. Like much of his writing, which grappled with themes related to history, ethics, and religion, The Scarlet Letter was set in New England and explored moral metaphors, Puritanism, and the psychological nuances of universal human frailties. The novel became a mainstay in the Western literary canon and has been routinely assigned to students since the mid-20th century.
Health problems kept Hawthorne from completing several of his romance novels. In an attempt to aid his recovery, he set out for the countryside in 1864 with an old college friend, former US President Franklin Pierce, who had left office seven years prior. During the trip, Hawthorne died in his sleep while touring the White Mountains in New Hampshire. He was 59.
In his personal life, Hawthorne publicly flirted with Mary Silsbee, the daughter of a US senator, and education reformer Elizabeth Peabody before pursuing Peabody’s sister, the transcendentalist artist Sophia Peabody. He joined a transcendentalist Utopian community in 1841, though he was never a true believer. Rather, his accommodations allowed him to save the funds necessary to marry Sophia, which he did. The two enjoyed a long and happy marriage and had three children.
In 1850, Hawthorne also struck up an intense friendship with fellow author Herman Melville, author of Moby-Dick (Melville dedicated the novel to Hawthorne). The letters they exchanged were filled with sensual language and homoerotic imagery, leading some literary scholars to speculate that their relationship may have crossed the boundary from platonic to genuine romance.