Nathaniel Hawthorne

(1804–1864)

Upon my honor, I am not quite sure that I entirely comprehend my own meaning in some of these blasted allegories.

(letter to James T. Fields, April 13, 1854)

Already in his own lifetime Hawthorne was recognized as one of the most important writers of fiction the United States had yet produced, and his status as a classic American author has only grown in the century and a half since his death. If he had written nothing other than The Scarlet Letter, his stature would still be high, but he also penned a number of other signifi cant novels as well as some of the most studied of all American short stories. He helped inspire Herman Melville and was much admired by Henry James; his dark vision of human pride and sin influenced the work of many 20th-century writers, including Flannery O’Connor. Through his example as a dedicated and professional writer of fiction, Hawthorne helped create the role of the serious author in American culture, and by his emphasis on allegory, symbolism, and the exploration of profound moral issues, he helped establish a tone and approach that would chart a path for many later writers.

In view of his later importance to American letters, it seems only appropriate that Hawthorne was born on the Fourth of July (in 1804). Yet not only the date but the place of his birth seems symbolic: He was born in Salem, Massachusetts, a town infamous as the setting for the notorious “witch trials” of the late 17th century. In these proceedings (which were often little more than kangaroo courts), innocent persons had been persecuted, prosecuted, tortured, and often executed because of alleged demonic possession, and these injustices had been committed at the behest of some of the same Puritan Christians whom Hawthorne numbered among his ancestors. Indeed, one of Hawthorne’s great-great-grandfathers had been a prominent judge during the trials, and one of the judge’s victims had supposedly pronounced a curse on him and his descendants before she was executed. Nathaniel Hawthorne certainly never forgot the darker side of this early Puritan heritage, and much of his fiction (including The Scarlet Letter) can be read as an effort to come to terms with—and perhaps atone for—the proud, judgmental, and self-righteous legacy of his own ancestors. Troubling guilt, secret motives, and hidden iniquity are frequent themes in his writings, and, given his own family history, this fact seems hardly surprising.

Hawthorne’s father, however (who was also named Nathaniel, although he spelled his last named Hathorne), earned his living not in a courtroom but at sea. He was a ship’s captain, and it was on a voyage in the South Atlantic that he died in Surinam of yellow fever when his only son was a mere four years old. Elizabeth Manning Hathorne, the captain’s widow, then moved young Nathaniel and his two sisters into the home of her parents in Salem, where her profound grief for the loss of her husband only deepened, if anything, her attachment to her children. Surrounded by numerous members of the Manning clan (and particularly watched over by his uncle Robert, his mother’s brother), Nathaniel enjoyed a basically happy childhood and began, even at this early age, the habit of devoted reading that would last a lifetime. An athletic injury in 1813 kept him out of school and confined at home for many months, thus deepening his ties to his mother and sisters and giving him even more time to read on his own. By 1818 he and his mother and sisters had moved briefl y to Raymond, Maine, where Nathaniel enjoyed exploring the outdoors, but by 1819 he was back in Salem again, living with the Mannings once more and preparing to begin college. In 1821 he entered Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, where he made a number of important friends, including Franklin Pierce (who would later become president of the United States) and Horatio Bridge (who would later take an active interest in promoting Hawthorne’s literary career).

After graduating from Bowdoin in 1825, Hawthorne again returned to the Manning household in Salem, where he lived with his mother, sisters, and other relatives for the next dozen years, staying in the upper room he had inhabited throughout his youth. It was during these early years back in Salem that he changed the spelling of the family name to Hawthorne, and it was also during this period that he began to devote himself to the idea of becoming a serious writer. In 1828 he personally paid for the anonymous publication of his first novel, Fanshawe, although he later destroyed any copies he could locate and never acknowledged or republished the book while he lived. When not writing, he traveled with an uncle on business, although he also spent a good deal of time reading, researching local history, and working on various pieces of short fiction, which began to appear in print in the early 1830s. Many of these works were published anonymously, and none of them earned the young author much money. He worked briefl y in Boston as a magazine editor in 1836, but when the magazine went out of business, he was soon back in Salem again. In 1837 (with financial help from his old college friend Horatio Bridge) he was able to publish Twice-Told Tales, a collection of nearly 20 of his stories, and it was in 1837, too (after his unsuccessful courtship of another woman), that he first met Sophia Peabody who eventually became his wife. Although Hawthorne was now attracting increasing attention and respect as an author, he knew that it would be difficult to support himself (let alone a wife and family) independently on a writer’s income. Thus, in 1839 he began working at the Boston Customs House—a position, however, from which he resigned in 1841. He took refuge for a few months at the experimental Brook Farm community in West Roxbury, Massachusetts (a place designed to promote social ideals and cooperative agriculture), but by the end of the year he had soured on his experiences there and would eventually satirize the undertaking in a novel called The Blithedale Romance.

By this time Hawthorne was becoming increasingly prominent (if not financially successful) as an author. In 1841 he published such works for children as Grandfather’s Chair, Famous Old People, and Liberty Tree, and 1842 witnessed the publication not only of Biographical Stories for Children but also (more signifi cantly) of a much-expanded edition of Twice-Told Tales. In 1842, as well, Hawthorne finally married Sophia Peabody (to whom he had secretly been engaged since 1839), and by all accounts the early years of their marriage were very happy. The newlyweds rented a house in Concord, Massachusetts, known as the Old Manse, and during their time there they became friendly with the local transcendentalist group, which included Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau (among others). As had also been true at Brook Farm, Hawthorne tended to be more skeptical about human nature than were his optimistic new acquaintances, but his contact with these energetic intellectuals helped stimulate his own thinking and certainly did nothing to harm the growth of his own literary status. At home, too, good things were happening: Although Sophia had suffered a miscarriage in 1843, in 1844 she successfully gave birth to a daughter (named Una), who was followed in 1846 by a son (named Julian). Also in 1846, Hawthorne was appointed surveyor in the Custom House in Salem (thus providing him a reliable income), and during the same year he published another signifi cant collection of stories, this time titled Mosses from an Old Manse. It was this book (which contains some of Hawthorne’s finest work) that would, before long, prompt an enthusiastic review by Herman Melville, who eventually considered Hawthorne a kindred spirit.

By 1849, however, Hawthorne’s fortunes had taken a darker turn: Because of political changes at the national level, he lost his patronage appointment at the Custom House, and, even more distressingly, he also lost his mother, with whom he had always had a particularly close relationship. Both events probably contributed to the somber atmosphere of his newest novel, The Scarlet Letter, which he began writing during that fall; it was published in 1850 and was quickly recognized as an unusually remarkable book. Although some early readers considered it immoral, many others praised both its style and its substance, and today it is regarded as perhaps the first great American novel. It was not long before Hawthorne produced yet another masterpiece—a novel titled The House of the Seven Gables, which was published in 1851 (the same year that saw the birth of his daughter Rose). This book was soon followed, in 1852, by yet another novel (The Blithedale Romance), a collection of stories (The Snow-Image and Other Twice-Told Tales), a work for children (A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys), and a campaign biography for Franklin Pierce (Hawthorne’s old college friend, who was now running for president). Pierce’s election helped win Hawthorne appointment to the lucrative and prestigious position of U.S. consul in Liverpool, England, where he and his family lived from 1853 until 1857. These years saw the publication of Tanglewood Tales for Girls and Boys (1853) and the printing of a second, revised edition of Mosses from an Old Manse (1854). Hawthorne also compiled detailed notebooks during his time in England, but these were not published until well after his death.

When Pierce’s term as president ended in 1857, so did Hawthorne’s position as consul. In 1858 he and his family traveled in France and Italy, taking up residence first in Rome and then in Florence, although the almost-fatal illness of the Hawthornes’ daughter Una was soon followed by the family’s return to England in 1859 and then by a final relocation relocation to the United States in 1860. During that year Hawthorne’s latest novel, The Marble Faun, appeared in print, but by this time, too, the tensions that would soon lead to the Civil War had become almost unendurable. For the next half-decade the country would be plunged into extreme turmoil, and during this period Hawthorne’s literary career also began to falter as his health steadily declined. He did publish a collection of articles titled Our Old Home in 1863, but most of his attempts at fiction were stillborn. Friends who met him during these last years of his life were struck by the change in his appearance and manner; the once-handsome and vigorous young man had now lost much of his earlier vitality, and by 1864 both Hawthorne and his family sensed that his end was near. He died in his sleep on May 19 and was buried in Concord, Massachusetts, four days later. The same minister who had married Nathaniel and Sophia more than two decades earlier now conducted Nathaniel’s funeral, which was attended by many of the most eminent fi gures of the New England literary community. They clearly understood what most others have also realized: that during his nearly 60 years of life, Hawthorne not only had managed to create one of the most enduring and infl uential legacies of any American author but had also helped take American writing to a new level of maturity and international respect.

CRITICAL OVERVIEWS