Nathaniel Hawthorne was a man of business, politics, nature, morals, dedication and imagination who was greatly haunted by the actions of his Puritan ancestors (Gollin 360). Being one of the pioneers of noteworthy American literature, Hawthorne used the issues of his time and the history of Puritan New England as his settings. He was the son of Nathaniel Hathorne and Elizabeth Manning and was born on July 4, 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts. After his father’s death, Hawthorne and his family moved to their mother’s house. Later, he went to Bowdoin College and graduated in 1825. Here, he became friends with future U.S. president Franklin Pierce. He lacked interest in medicine, ministry and law, so he chose to write (Gollin 358). Perchance in shame of sharing a tie with men like John and William Hathorne, he then added a w to his last name.
His early works were short stories put into periodicals and eventually into the Twice Told Tales which earned him fame. Then, he spent a year at both the Boston Custom House and the utopian Brook Farm. Both of these experiences stifled his imagination, and so he left. After marrying Sophia Peabody and having children, Hawthorne became destitute. So, he earned through Democratic Party ties a stable job at the Salem Custom House but lost it when the Whigs took over. So, he began to write again and produced his greatest acclaimed works. Eventually, President Pierce appointed him as the U.S. consul in Liverpool. From Liverpool, he moved to Italy, where he wrote a novel, back to England and finally back to Concord, Massachusetts. There, he died on May 19, 1864. Hawthorne covered the literary gamut with children’s books and short stories to powerful novels. Ultimately, Hawthorne represents how the issues ...
... middle of paper ...
...Book Encyclopedia. Vol. 9. Chicago: World, 2009. 114-115. Print.
Delaney, Bill. “Hawthorne, Nathaniel.” Magill’s Survey of American Literature. Rev. ed. Pasadena: Salem, 2007. Literary Reference Center. Web. 23 Dec. 2010. .
Gollin, Rita K. “Hawthorne, Nathaniel.” American National Biography. Ed. Garraty and Carnes. Vol. 10. New York City : Oxford UP, 1999. 356-363. Print.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “Nathaniel Hawthorne.” Preface. The Scarlet Letter. By Hawthorne. New York City: Bantam, 1988. N. pag. Print.
- - -. The Scarlet Letter. 1850. New York City: Bantam, 1988. Print.
Liukkonen, Petri, and Ari Pesonen. “Nathaniel Hawthorne.” Kirjasto. N.p., 2008. Web. 23 Dec. 2010. .
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. Enriched Classic ed. New York City: Simon & Schuster, 2004. Print.
“Nathaniel Hawthorne – Biography.” The European Graduate School. The European Graduate School, n.d. Web. 17 Feb. 2014
Waggoner, Hyatt H. “Nathaniel Hawthorne.” In Six American Novelists of the Nineteenth Century, edited by Richard Foster. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1968.
Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts on July 4, 1804 (Magill 1; Campbell 1; “Nathaniel Hawthorne”; Eldred 1). He was born into the sixth generation of his Salem family, and was a descendant of a long line of New England Puritans, which contributed in his interest in the Puritan way of life. The family was originally known as the “Hathornes”, but Nathaniel added the “w” to his name so it would become “Hawthorne”. The Hawthornes had been involved in religious persecution with their first American ancestor, William. Another ancestor, John Hathorne, was one of the three judges at the seventeenth-century Salem witchcraft trials. Hawthorne’s father was a sea captain, and when he was four years old (1808), his father died on a voyage in Surinam, Dutch Guinea (Campbell 1). Hawthorne was left alone with his mother and two sisters. He spent his early years in Salem and in Maine, during which he showed an interest in his father’s nautical adventures and read his logbooks often, even after his death (Magill 1). His maternal relatives recognized his literary talent at such a you...
Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in the year 1804 in the heart of Salem, Massachusetts, where to Salem witch trials were conducted. Hawthorne was born in an unforgiving time period, where life revolved around religion and family. Hawthorne’s father died of Yellow Fever in the year 1808. Nathaniel grew up fatherless, which had a lasting effect on who he later became to be. Education at the time was centered on reading and writing, with a heavy religious influence. “The education of the next generation was important to further "purify" the church and perfect social living” (Kizer). However, since his father passed away, there was no other man to instill the Puritan beliefs into young Nathaniel. Hawthorne later on was able to see the culture through a different lens than the people surrounding him, which made him slightly opposed to the Puritan way of life. He became intellectually rebellious; not thinking in the same way that his peers or family was.
Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on July 4, 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, the descendent of a long line of Puritan ancestors, including John Hathorne, a presiding magistrate in the Salem witch trials. After his father was lost at sea when he was only four, his mother became overly protective and pushed him toward more isolated pursuits. Hawthorne's childhood left him overly shy and bookish, and molded his life as a writer. Hawthorne is one of the most modern of writers who rounds off the puritan cycle in American writing
Wagenknecht, Edward. Nathaniel Hawthorne – The Man, His Tales and Romances. New York: Continuum Publishing Co., 1989.
"Nathaniel Hawthorne- Biography." The European Graduate School. The European Graduate School EGS, 1997-2012. Web. 25 November 2013.
BIOGRAM The man Nathaniel Hawthorne, an author of the nineteenth century, was born in 1804, in Salem, Massachusetts. It was there that he lived a poverty-stricken childhood without the financial support of a father, because he had passed away in 1808. Hawthorne was raised strictly Puritan, his great-grandfather had even been one of the judges in the Puritan witchcraft trials during the 1600s. This and Hawthorne’s destitute upbringing advanced his understanding of human nature and distress felt by social, religious, and economic inequities.
On July 4, 1804, an author by the name of Nathaniel Hawthorne was born (Meltzer). As Hawthorne grew, he began to develop a view of himself as “the obscurest man in American letters.” Through the use of popular themes such as isolation, guilt, and earthly imperfection, Hawthorne was able to involve much of his life and ancestral past in his work to answer his own political and religious wonders (“Nathaniel”). Hawthorne successfully “confronts reality rather than evading it” in many of his stories (Clendenning).
Lathrop, G. P., ed. "Hawthorne, Nathaniel." The Reader's Encyclopedia of American Literature. Binghamton, New York: Vail-Ballou, 1962. 439-40. Print.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "The Scarlet Letter." Nathaniel Hawthorne's Tales. Ed. James McIntosh. New York: Norton, 1987.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. Young Goodman Brown. Charlottesville, Va: University of Virginia Library, 1996. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 2 Mar. 2014.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “The Scarlet Letter”. American Literature: Volume One. Ed. William E. Cain. New York: Pearson, 2004. 809-813. Print
Wagenknecht, Edward. Nathaniel Hawthorne – The Man, His Tales and Romances. New York: Continuum Publishing Co., 1989.