Nathaniel Hawthorne was born July 4, 1804 in Salem Massachusetts, the descendent of a long line of puritan ancestors, including John Hawthorne, a presiding magistrate in the Salem witch trails. After his father was lost at sea when he was four, his mother became overly protective and pushed him toward more isolated pursuits. It is said that Hawthorne felt a responsibility for his ancestor’s role in the witch trials. His secluded childhood left him overly shy and he turned his attention to reading. As a child he is known to have studied Shakespeare, Milton, Pope and Thompson.

In 1821 Hawthorne entered Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, where he gradua

Aylmer clearly sums up his mistake himself when he says “The momentary circumstances was too strong for him; he failed to look beyond the shadowy scope of time, and, living once for all in eternity, to find the perfect future in the present.”

ted three years later. There he distinguished himself in the classics, and he wrote several creditable English poems. Also, while at college he became acquainted with the likes of Henry W. Longfellow and Franklin Pierce. Though often held as an excellent writer, Hawthorne could not support himself financially and accepted an appointment as a weigher in the Customs House. After two years of public service a change in the administration left him unemployed and he returned to Salem where he wrote a collection of children’s short stories called “Grandfather’s Chair”. A new period in his life commenced in 1842 when he married Miss Sofia Peabody, and moved to Concord, Massachusetts. In 1845, yet another rift in the national administration secured for him the appointment of surveyor of The Custom House in Salem. He held this position until the success of the Whigs retired him. His next work, “T

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