With the aid of his wealthy uncles, young Hawthorne attended Bowdoin College from to By his own admission, he was a negligent student with little appetite for study. While attending college, Hawthorne missed his mother and two sisters terribly and upon graduation, returned home for a year stay. Hawthorne ended his self-imposed seclusion at home about the same time he met Sophia Peabody, a painter, illustrator and transcendentalist. In , the first of their three children was born.
With mounting debt and a growing family, Hawthorne moved to Salem. A life-long Democrat, political connections helped him land a job as a surveyor in the Salem Custom House in , providing his family some needed financial security.
However, when Whig President Zachary Taylor was elected, Hawthorne lost his appointment due to political favoritism. The dismissal turned into a blessing giving him time to write his masterpiece, The Scarlet Letter , the story of two lovers who clashed with the Puritan moral law. The book was one of the first mass-produced publications in the United States and its wide distribution made Hawthorne famous. During the election, Hawthorne wrote a campaign biography for his college friend Pierce.
After serving as consul, Hawthorne took his family on an extended vacation to Italy and then back to England. In addition, these books received great reviews from literary critics and from reviewers on Amazon and Goodreads.
Disclaimer: This post contains Amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. The Scarlet Letter. Published in , the Scarlet Letter is a novel set in 17th century Puritan New England and is about a young woman who becomes pregnant after having an affair and is ostracized by her community. The book explores themes of sin, guilt and legalism. It was one of the first mass-produced books in America and the first printing of 2, copies sold out in 10 days.
The book was well received by critics and is still considered one of the best novels ever published. The House of Seven Gables. Published in , the novel is about an old New England family and their ancestral home and was inspired by the Turner-Ingersoll Mansion in Salem, Massachusetts.
The novel is set in the 19th century, although it features flashbacks to the 17th century, and is about the cursed old mansion and how its dark past still haunts the current inhabitants. The themes of the book center around guilt, retribution and atonement and the story involves the supernatural and witchcraft.
The book sold well and was well received by critics and the general public. The book sold 6, copies in its first year, which was slightly more than The Scarlet Letter. The Blithedale Romance. The book explores how the friendships of the group evolve over the course of the year but then eventually result in a tragedy.
Perhaps, however, in this case, it fills out the measure of appreciation more completely than in others, for the Blithedale Romance is the lightest, the brightest, the liveliest, of this company of unhumorous fictions. Everything is fluid, and values are in doubt. Things are not what they seem, for The Blithedale Romance is theater. The actors group and regroup in a carefully structured series of confrontations.
They speak their minds but veil their meanings. The Marble Faun. Published in , this novel is a murder mystery and romance story involving three Americans and an Italian count in Rome, Italy. The story revolves around a murder and the impact it has on the four main characters.
The book explores themes of transgression and guilt and touches on the influence of European cultural ideas on American morality. Hawthorne's life at the "Old Manse" was happy and productive, and these were some of the happiest years of his life.
He was newly married, in love with his wife, and surrounded by many of the leading literary figures of the day: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, and Bronson Alcott.
During this time, Hawthorne wrote for the Democratic Review and produced some tales that would be published in in Mosses from an Old Manse. Financial problems continued to plague the family, however. The birth of their first child, Una, caused Hawthorne to once again seek a financially secure job.
With the help of his old friends, Hawthorne was appointed a surveyor for the port of Salem. His son, Julian, was born in Although the new job eased the financial problems for the family, Hawthorne again found little time to pursue his writing. Nevertheless, during this time, he was already forming ideas for a novel based on his Puritan ancestry and introduced by a preface about the Custom House where he worked.
When the Whigs won the election, Hawthorne lost his position. It was a financial shock to the family, but it fortuitously provided him with time to write The Scarlet Letter. During these years Hawthorne was to write some of the greatest prose of his life. In , Hawthorne wrote The Scarlet Letter, which won him much fame and greatly increased his reputation. While warmly received here and abroad, The Scarlet Letter sold only 8, copies in Hawthorne's lifetime.
In , when the family moved to Lennox, Massachusetts, Hawthorne made the acquaintance of Herman Melville, a young writer who became a good friend. Hawthorne encouraged the young Melville, who later thanked him by dedicating his book, Moby Dick, to him. Because there was little to no literature published for children, Hawthorne's book was unique in this area. In Concord, the Hawthornes found a permanent house, along with nine acres of land, which they purchased from Bronson Alcott, the transcendentalist writer and father of Louisa May Alcott.
Hawthorne renamed the house The Wayside, and in May, , he and his family moved in. Here, Hawthorne was to write only two of his works: Tanglewood Tales, another collection designed for young readers, and A Life of Pierce, a campaign biography for his old friend from college.
The Hawthornes spent the next seven years in Europe. Although Hawthorne wrote no additional fiction while serving as consul, he kept a journal that later served as a source of material for Our Old Home, a collection of sketches dealing with English scenery, life, and manners published in While in Italy, Hawthorne kept a notebook that provided material for his final, complete work of fiction, which was published in England as Transformation and, in America, as The Marble Faun.
By the autumn of , Hawthorne was a sick man.
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