Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts on July 4, 1804 and passed away on May 19, 1864. Hawthorne was the only son of Nathaniel and Elizabeth Clark Hathorne (Manning). His father was a sea-captain, died of yellow fever in 1808 when Hawthorne was four years old. Hawthorne suffered from a leg injury at an early age which left him immobile for several months. He developed an appetite for reading in his months of immobility and decided he wanted to become a writer.
At age seventeen Hawthorne quoted, “I do not want to be a doctor and live by men’s diseases, nor a minister and live by their sins, nor a lawyer and live by their quarrels. So, I don’t see that there is anything left for me but to be an author.”
In 1821 Hawthorne enrolled at Bowdoin College. There he met Henry Wadsworth Longfellow who was a poet, Franklin Pierce, a future president, and Horatio Bridge, a future naval commander. Hawthorne studied the classics, mathematics, philosophy, composition, and natural science. As an average student, Hawthorne graduated in 1825. After college he stayed at his mother’s home in Salem.
While in his early 20s Hawthorne added the “w” to his last name in order to distance himself from his family’s shameful involvement in the Salem witch trials. His family had a long New England history including John Hathorne, who was a
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Hawthorne and his family moved to Salem to stay with his mother in 1845. He then published the book, Mosses from an Old Mase in 1846. Their second child, Julian was also born that same year. Hawthorne accepted a position of secretary of the Salem Lyceum. In 1848 he lost his job when Zachary Taylor won the presidency. The following year Hawthorne lost his mother. In that same year, in the attic of his old home, he found an old worn letter ‘A’. This letter inspired him to write his famous novel, The Scarlet Letter. Hawthorne read the final pages to his wife on February 3,