Nathaniel Hawthorne

(1804 – 1864)

Biographical Sketch

Nathaniel Hawthorne (born Nathaniel Hathorne; Salem, MA, USA, July 4, 1804 – Plymouth, NH, USA, May 19, 1864) was an American novelist and short story writer.

He was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts to Nathaniel Hathorne and the former Elizabeth Clarke Manning. His ancestors include John Hathorne, the only judge involved in the Salem witch trials who never repented of his actions. Nathaniel later added a “w” to make his name “Hawthorne” in order to hide this relation. He entered Bowdoin College in 1821, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in 1824, and graduated in 1825. Hawthorne published his first work, a novel titled Fanshawe, in 1828; he later tried to suppress it, feeling it was not equal to the standard of his later work. He published several short stories in various periodicals which he collected in 1837 as Twice-Told Tales. The next year, he became engaged to Sophia Peabody. He worked at a Custom House and joined Brook Farm, a transcendentalist community, before marrying Peabody in 1842. The couple moved to The Old Manse in Concord, Massachusetts, later moving to Salem, the Berkshires, then to The Wayside in Concord. The Scarlet Letter was published in 1850, followed by a succession of other novels. A political appointment took Hawthorne and family to Europe before their return to The Wayside in 1860. Hawthorne died on May 19, 1864, and was survived by his wife and their three children.

Much of Hawthorne’s writing centers on New England, many works featuring moral allegories with a Puritan inspiration. His fiction works are considered part of the Romantic movement and, more specifically, Dark romanticism. His themes often center on the inherent evil and sin of humanity, and his works often have moral messages and deep psychological complexity. His published works include novels, short stories, and a biography of his friend Franklin Pierce.

Bibliography

Novels

Fanshawe (1828)
The Story Teller (1834?)
– Manuscript lost; reconstructed posthumously.
The Scarlet Letter (1850)
The House of the Seven Gables (1851)
The Blithedale Romance (1852)
The Marble Faun (1860)

Tales and Sketches

Twice-told Tales (1837)
Volume 1:
- Preface (1851)
- The Gray Champion (1835)
- Sunday at Home (1837)
- The Wedding-Knell (1836)
- The Minister’s Black Veil (1836)
- The May-Pole of Merry Mount (1836)
- The Gentle Boy (1832)
- Mr. Higginbotham’s Catastrophe (1834)
- Little Annie’s Ramble (1835)
- Wakefield (1835)
- A Rill from the Town-Pump (1835)
- The Great Carbuncle (1837)
- The Prophetic Pictures (1837)
- David Swan (1837)
- Sights from a Steeple (1831)
- The Hollow of the Three Hills (1830)
- The Toll-Gatherer’s Day (1837)
- The Vision of the Fountain (1835)
- Fancy’s Show Box (1837)
- Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment (1837)
Volume 2:
- Legends of the Province House:
  - I. Howe’s Masquerade (1838)
  - II. Edward Randolph’s Portrait (1838)
  - III. Lady Eleanore’s Mantle (1838)
  - IV. Old Esther Dudley (1839)
- The Haunted Mind (1835)
- The Village Uncle (1835)
- The Ambitious Guest (1835)
- The Sister Years (1835)
- Snow-Flakes (1838)
- The Seven Vagabonds (1833)
- The White Old Maid (1835)
- Peter Goldthwaite’s Treasure (1838)
- Chippings with a Chisel (1838)
- The Shaker Bridal (1838)
- Night Sketches (1838)
- Endicott and the Red Cross (1838)
- The Lily’s Quest (1839)
- Foot-prints on the Sea-shore (1838)
- Edward Fane’s Rosebud (1837)
- The Threefold Destiny (1838)
Mosses from an Old Manse (1846):
- The Old Manse (1846)
- The Birth-mark (1843)
- A Select Party (1844)
- Young Goodman Brown (1835)
- Rappaccini’s Daughter (1844)
- Mrs. Bullfrog (1837)
- Fire-Worship (1843)
- Buds and Bird-Voices (1843)
- Monsieur du Miroir (1837)
- The Hall of Fantasy (1843)
- The Celestial Rail-road (1843)
- The Procession of Life (1843)
- >Feathertop (1852)
- The New Adam and Eve (1843)
- Egotism; or, The Bosom-Serpent (1843)
- The Christmas Banquet (1844)
- Drowne’s Wooden Image (1844)
- The Intelligence Office (1844)
- Roger Malvin’s Burial (1832)
- P.’s Correspondence (1845)
- Earth’s Holocaust (1844)
- Passages from a Relinquished Work (1834)
- Sketches from Memory (1835)
- The Old Apple-Dealer (1843)
- The Artist of the Beautiful (1844)
- A Virtuoso’s Collection (1842)
The Snow-Image and Other Twice-told Tales (1851):
- Preface (1852)
- The Snow-Image (1850)
- The Great Stone Face (1850)
- Main-street (1849)
- Ethan Brand (1850)
- A Bell’s Biography (1837)
- Sylph Etherege (1838)
- The Canterbury Pilgrims (1833)
  - Old News (1835)
  - Old News – II. The Old French War
  - Old News – III. The Old Tory
- The Man of Adamant (1837)
- The Devil in Manuscript (1835)
- John Inglefield’s Thanksgiving (1840)
- Old Ticonderoga (1836)
- The Wives of the Dead (1832)
- Little Daffydowndilly (1843)
- My Kinsman, Major Molineux (1832)
A Wonder Book for Boys and Girls (1852):
- Preface
- Tanglewood Porch: Introductory to “The Gorgon’s Head”
- The Gorgon’s Head
- Tanglewood Porch: After the Story
- Shadow Brook: Introductory to “The Golden Touch”
- The Golden Touch
- Shadow Brook: After the Story
- Tanglewood Play-Room: Introductory to “The Paradise of Children”
- The Paradise of Children
- Tanglewood Play-Room: After the Story
- Tanglewood Fireside: Introductory to “The Three Golden Apples”
- The Three Golden Apples
- Tanglewood Fireside: After the Story
- The Hill-Side: Introductory to “The Miraculous Pitcher”
- The Miraculous Pitcher
- The Hill-Side: After the Story
- Bald Summit: Introductory to “The Chimæra”
- The Chimæra
- Bald Summit: After the Story
Tanglewood Tales (1853)
- The Wayside: Introductory
- I. The Minotaur
- II. The Pygmies
- III. The Dragon’s Teeth
- IV. Circe’s Palace
- V. The Pomegranate-Seeds
- VI. The Golden Fleece
Uncollected Stories or Sketches in Magazines (1830 – 1844):
- Sir William Phips (1830)
- Mrs. Hutchinson (1830)
- An Old Woman’s Tale (1830)
- Dr. Bullivant (1831)
- The Haunted Quack (1831)
- Graves and Goblins
- Sir William Pepperell (1833)
- Alice Doane’s Appeal (1835)
- My Visit to Niagara (1835)
- A Visit to the Clerk of the Weather (1836)
- Fragments from the Journal of a Solitary Man (1837)
- Thomas Green Fessenden (1838)
- Time’s Portraiture (1838)
- Jonathan Cilley (1838)
- The Whole History of Grandfather’s Chair (1840)
- The Antique Ring (1843)
- A Good Man’s Miracle (1844)
- A Book of Autographs (1844)

Unfinished Fragments

The Dolliver Romance (1864, 1876)
Septimius Felton: or, the Elixir of Life (1872)
The Ancestral Footstep (1882-1883)
Dr. Grimshawe’s Secret (1883, 1954)

Biographies, Memoirs, Essays, Correspondence

Brown’s Folly (1860)
– Letter for the Essex Institute.
Chiefly about War Matters (1862)
The Life of Franklin Pierce (1852)
Our Old Home (1863)
Passages from the American Note-Books (1868)
– Edited by his widow, Sophia Hawthorne.
Passages from the English Note-Books (1870)
– Edited by his widow, Sophia Hawthorne.
Passages from the French and Italian Notebooks (1883)
– Edited by his widow, Sophia Hawthorne.
True Stories from History and Biography (1972)
The Letters: 1813 – 1843 (1985)
The Letters: 1843 – 1853 (1985)
The Letters, 1853 – 1856 (1988)
The Consular Letters, 1853 – 1855 (1988)
The Consular Letters, 1856 – 1857 (1989)
The Letters, 1857 – 1864 (1987)
Love letters of Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1839 – 1863
Letters of Hawthorne to William D. Ticknor, 1851 – 1864
Selected Letters of Nathaniel Hawthorne (2002)
Twenty Days with Julian and Little Bunny by Papa (2003)

Online editions of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s works:

A Favorite Quote

The House of the Seven Gables

“He had that sense, or inward prophecy, – which a young man had better never have been born than not to have, and a mature man had better die at once than utterly to relinquish, – that we are not doomed to creep on forever in the old bad way, but that, this very now, there are harbingers abroad of a golden era, to be accomplished in his own lifetime.”

Find more quotes by Nathaniel Hawthorne on Wikiquote and Goodreads.