System Mechanic - Clean, repair, protect, and speed up your PC!Nathaniel Hawthorne, Writer
Novelist and short story writer, Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1804. His father, who died when the young Nathaniel was four, was a sea captain and descendant of John Hawthorne, one of the judges in the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692. Hawthorne grew up in seclusion with his widowed mother - and for the rest of her life they relied on each other for emotional solace.
Hawthorne read extensively was educated at the Bowdoin College in Maine (1821-24). among his school friends were Longfellow and Franklin Pierce, who became the 14th president of the U.S. Between the years 1825 and 1836 Hawthorne worked as a writer and contributor to periodicals. Another of Hawthorne's friends was John L. O'Sullivan, whose magazine the Democratic Review published two dozen stories by him. Hawthorne's first novel, FANSHAWE, appeared anonymously at his own expense in 1828. The work was based on his college life. and was entered for Bowdoin College in Maine in 1821. It did not receive much attention and the author burned the unsold copies. However, the book initiated a friendship between Hawthorne and the publisher Samuel Goodrich. He edited in 1836 the American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge in Boston, and compiled in 1837 PETER PARLEY'S UNIVERSAL HISTORY for children. It was followed by a series of books for children.
In 1842 Hawthorne became friends with the Transcendentalists in Concord - Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Bronson Alcott, but generally he did not have much confidence in intellectuals and artists. 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.
"The Custom-House" sketch, prefatory to The Scarlet Letter, was based partly on his experiences in Salem. The novel appeared in 1850 and told a story of the earliest victims of Puritan obsession and spiritual intolerance. The central theme is the effect of guilt, anxiety and sorrow. The main character, Hester Prynne has been seen as a pioneer feminist in the line from Anne Hutchinson to Margaret Fuller, a classic nurturer, a sexually autonomous woman, and an American equivalent of Anna Karenina. Hawthorne looked not only to the Puritan origins of American history, but also to Puritan styles of rhetoric to create a distinctive American literary voice.
The House of the Seven Gables was published the following year. During this productive period Hawthorne also established a warm friendship with Herman Melville, who dedicated Moby-Dick to him. In 1853 Franklin Pierce became President and Hawthorne, who had written a campaign biography for him, was appointed as consul in Liverpool, England. He lived there for four years, and then spent a year and half in Italy writing THE MARBLE FAUN (1860), a story about the conflict between innocence and guilt. It was his last completed novel. He returned to Massachusetts in 1860. In his Concord home, The Wayside, he wrote the essays contained in OUR OLD HOME (1863). Hawthorne died on May 19, 1864, at age 59, in Plymouth, N.H. on a trip to the mountains with his friend Franklin Pierce. After his death his wife edited and published his notebooks. Modern editions of these works include many of the sections which she cut out or altered.
Of note; Julian Hawthorne (1846-1934), the son of Nathaniel Hawthorne, who began publishing short fiction in 1870. Many of Julian Hawthorne 's novellas and short stories are weird tales of curses and apparitions, some drawing inspiration from his Swedenborgian faith. His career was interrupted by a jail term. He moved to California, where he wrote for newspapers, pulp magazine All-Story Weekly, and edited series of anthologies. His daughter Hildegarde (1871-1952) also wrote some fantasy, which can be found in Faded Garden (1985)
