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Introduction. Nathaniel Hawthorne had deep bonds with his Puritan ancestors and created a story that both highlighted their weaknesses and their strengths. His knowledge of their beliefs and his admiration for their strengths were balanced by his concerns for their rigid and oppressive rules.
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- Book Summary
As Hester looks out over the crowd, she notices a small,...
- The Scarlet Letter at a Glance
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, adulteress Hester...
- Chapter 22
Hawthorne uses Mistress Hibbins to foreshadow the ending and...
- Hester Prynne
Hawthorne attributes this transformation to her lonely...
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- Overview
- Early years
- First works
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–64) is regarded as one of the greatest fiction writers in American literature. He was a skillful craftsman with an architectonic sense of form, as displayed in the tightly woven structure of his works, and a master of prose style, which he used to clearly reveal his characters’ psychological and moral depths.
What was Nathaniel Hawthorne’s family like?
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s family had lived in Salem, Massachusetts, since the 1600s. One ancestor was a magistrate who, in staunchly defending Puritanism, sentenced a Quaker woman to public whipping. Another was a judge in the Salem witch trials. During the 1700s the family went into decline—perhaps, Nathaniel was to think, because of his ancestors’ behaviour.
What did Nathaniel Hawthorne do for a living?
Nathaniel Hawthorne was a writer but struggled to make a living from his writing. To make ends meet, he resorted to working as a customs officer in Boston, living briefly at the utopian commune Brook Farm, and serving as U.S. consul in Liverpool, Lancashire.
Nathaniel Hawthorne (born July 4, 1804, Salem, Massachusetts, U.S.—died May 19, 1864, Plymouth, New Hampshire) American novelist and short-story writer who was a master of the allegorical and symbolic tale. One of the greatest fiction writers in American literature, he is best known for The Scarlet Letter (1850) and The House of the Seven Gables (1851).
Hawthorne’s ancestors had lived in Salem since the 17th century. His earliest American ancestor, William Hathorne (Nathaniel added the w to the name when he began to write), was a magistrate who had sentenced a Quaker woman to public whipping. He had acted as a staunch defender of Puritan orthodoxy, with its zealous advocacy of a “pure,” unaffected...
In college Hawthorne had excelled only in composition and had determined to become a writer. Upon graduation, he had written an amateurish novel, Fanshawe, which he published at his own expense—only to decide that it was unworthy of him and to try to destroy all copies. Hawthorne, however, soon found his own voice, style, and subjects, and within five years of his graduation he had published such impressive and distinctive stories as “The Hollow of the Three Hills” and “An Old Woman’s Tale.” By 1832, “My Kinsman, Major Molineux” and “Roger Malvin’s Burial,” two of his greatest tales—and among the finest in the language—had appeared. “Young Goodman Brown,” perhaps the greatest tale of witchcraft ever written, appeared in 1835.
His increasing success in placing his stories brought him a little fame. Unwilling to depend any longer on his uncles’ generosity, he turned to a job in the Boston Custom House (1839–40) and for six months in 1841 was a resident at the agricultural cooperative Brook Farm, in West Roxbury, Massachusetts. Even when his first signed book, Twice-Told Tales, was published in 1837, the work had brought gratifying recognition but no dependable income. By 1842, however, Hawthorne’s writing had brought him a sufficient income to allow him to marry Sophia Peabody; the couple rented the Old Manse in Concord and began a happy three-year period that Hawthorne would later record in his essay “The Old Manse.”
Britannica Quiz
Writers’ Retreats
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Hawthorne was a disbeliever in hell, heaven, angels, or devils as there was the clash between modern science and the Bible, which made him highly suspicious. The nature of the 19 th -century literature was more conservative and did not match the frank nature of twentieth-century literature.
This study provides a focused and substantial exploration of the biblical contexts of Hawthorne's fiction. Through these biblical contexts one can gain additional insight to Hawthorne's artistic and moral concerns as expressed in his writing.
Mar 16, 2015 · It wasn’t until this day, March 16, in 1850, that the publication of The Scarlet Letter launched Hawthorne into the literary limelight — at the advanced age (by 19th-century standards) of...
Nov 26, 2019 · Two of Hawthorne’s most enduringly popular stories—“Roger Malvin’s Burial” and “My Kinsman, Major Molineux”—appeared initially in the 1831 edition of a literary annual called The Token but remained uncollected until long afterward.
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Hawthorne developed a deep lifelong friendship with Pierce and would later go on to write a campaign biography for him in 1852 to little fanfare and a deep dislike from the public for Pierce’s political stances at the time.
