The Scarlet Letter
by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Table of Contents
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathanial Hawthorne was born Nathaniel Hathorne on July 4, 1804, in Salem, Massachusetts. Hawthorne’s family had a long history in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, including an ancestor who sat as a judge in the Salem witch trials. He changed the spelling of his name to avoid association with that ancestor, a detail that reveals some of the lingering sentiment in the area. After graduating from college, Hawthorne began publishing his works, beginning with short stories. He did not find immediate success as an author. He also worked at a customs house and also became involved in the transcendentalist movement, even living at Brook Farm, a transcendentalist community, for part of his adulthood. Hawthorne went on to publish novels, beginning with The Scarlet Letter.
