Nathaniel+Hawthorne+Biography

media type="custom" key="12901108"Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts on July 4, 1804 to John Hathorne, a sea captain, and Elizabeth Manning. He was also the great-great-great grandson of William Hathorne, a prominent member of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and a judge at the infamous Salem Witch Trials. Nathaniel’s father died in 1808, prompting him, his mother, and two sisters, to live with maternal relatives until eventually relocating to Raymond, Maine. Hathorne attended Bowdoin College from 1821 through 1825, where he first began to incorporate the “w” into his last name, as well as befriended poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and future president Franklin Pierce. media type="custom" key="12879200"After College, throughout the 1830’s, Nathaniel Hawthorne worked as an editor of //The American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge//, a short-lived monthly magazine, and in 1839 accepted the position of Weighter at the Boston Custom House. It is during this time that Hawthorne began to submit many short stories, including “Young Goodman Brown”, to various periodicals. In 1836, a collection of his short stories, //Twice Told Tales//, was published, and his name began to be known. In the preface to the 1851 edition of //Twice Told Tales//, Hawthorne writes that the work extends “over a period of ten or twelve years, and comprising the whole of the writer’s young manhood, without making (so far as he has ever been aware) the slightest impression on the Public” (289). In 1842, Nathaniel Hawthorne married Sophia Peabody in Boston. MA. The two relocated to Concord, MA where Sophia gave birth to their first two children, Una (1844), and Julian (1846). During this time period Hawthorne continued to write short stories, many of them contributing to his second published collection, //Mosses from an Old Manse//. media type="custom" key="12879214"In 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne publishes //The Scarlet Letter//. This novel was” One of the first mass-produced books in America, it sold 2,500 volumes within ten days and earned Hawthorne $1,500 over 14 years” (McFarland 136). It was during this period that Hawthorne moved his family to Lenox, MA, where he quickly became friends with //Moby Dick// author Herman Melville. This scenery change did not impede his writing, however, as he completed //The House of the Seven Gables// in1851, and //The Blithedale Romance// in 1852. Sophie also gave birth to the Hawthorne’s third child, Rose, in May of that year. media type="custom" key="12879226"Shortly after this, the family returned to Concord. Hawthorne’s first work upon returning to Concorde was //The Life of Franklin Pierce//, a piece of campaign rhetoric for his old friends presidential bid. To return the favor after his appointment to President, Franklin Pierce appointed Hawthorne with the position of United States consul in Liverpool. He held the office until 1857, after which he would continue to tour Italy and France with his family for a further three years. media type="custom" key="12879238"The Hawthorne’s returned to Concorde in 1860, where later that year //The Marble Faun//, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s last completed novel, was published. In the following years, Hawthorne’s health began to fail. On May 19, 1864, while on a trip to the White Mountains with Franklin Pierce, Nathaniel Hawthorne died in his sleep. “After devoting her remaining years to editing her husbands’ notebooks for publication, Sophia died in 1871” (Merriman).

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