Famous American novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne lived in the nineteenth century. He came from a distinguished line of clerics, judges, magistrates, and seamen. Two of his ancestors were John Hathorne, a judge at the infamous Salem Witch Trials, and William Hathorne, a magistrate who sentenced a Quaker woman to public flogging. To hide this line of ancestry, Nathaniel added a second “W” to his last name. He used New England as the backdrop for his books, and the majority of them are moral allegories influenced by Puritan principles. The literary works are psychologically intricate and frequently include moral teachings. A key component of the Romantic Movement known as Dark Romanticism is seen as having Hawthorne’s works as a representative. In addition to writing novels and short stories, he also wrote a biography of Franklin Pierce, a classmate and close friend. As a member of the transcendentalist community “Brook Farm,” Hawthorne met many philosophers and thinkers there, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Thoreau, and Bronson Alcott. He eventually lost interest in transcendentalism, though, and in his fictional work “The Blithedale Romance,” he expressed his disappointment. He worked as a consulate in Liverpool, Lancashire, for four years. His compositions deteriorated in coherence and had signs of psychic disintegration throughout his latter years. In his sleep, while traveling with his companion Pierce, Nathaniel Hawthorne passed away.
Early Childhood & Life
The family of Nathaniel Hathorne, Sr., and Elizabeth Clark Hathorne welcomed Nathaniel Hawthorne on July 4, 1804, in Salem, Massachusetts.
His father was an East India Marine Society member and a marine captain. He left behind a widow and three little children when he passed away in Suriname in 1808 from yellow fever. When Nathaniel’s father passed away, he was only four.
His family settled in with the Mannings in Salem, who are his maternal relatives.
Young Hawthorne was playing when he was struck in the leg on November 10, 1813. He spent a year in bed. He developed a passion for reading and decided he wanted to pursue writing as a career at this time.
He enrolled at Bowdoin College in 1821. He became acquaintances with Franklin Pierce, H.W. Longfellow, and Horatio Bridge during this time. He received his diploma in 1825.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Career
Fanshawe, his first novel, was written by him in 1828, but he later tried to suppress it because he believed it fell short of the caliber of his later works.
His writing abilities developed within five years after graduating, and by 1832, he had written some of his best stories, including “The Hollow of the Three Hills,” “My Kinsman, Major Molineux,” and “Roger Malvin’s Burial” in a number of periodicals and annuals.
Hawthorne was the editor of the “American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge” from 1836 until 1839.
His first signed book, “Twice-Told Tales,” which was a compilation of all his previously published short stories, was published in 1837.
He was hired on January 17, 1839, as a weigher and gauger at the Boston Custom House, earning $1,500 annually. For a year, Hawthorne worked there.
Hawthorne resided at the West Roxbury, Massachusetts-based agricultural cooperative known as “Brook Farm” for six months in 1841.
Hawthorne was formally hired in April 1846 and paid $1,200 annually to serve as the “Surveyor for the District of Salem and Beverly and Inspector of the Revenue for the Port of Salem.” Due to a change in the government following the 1848 presidential election, Hawthorne was fired from this position.
He was chosen to serve as the Salem Lyceum’s corresponding secretary in 1848.
Hawthorne published “The Scarlet Letter” in the middle of March 1850, and it quickly rose to the top of his bestseller list. It included a prelude that made mention of his three-year stint working at the Customs House.
His time in Lenox, Massachusetts, was the most fruitful. The House of the Seven Gables (1851), Blithedale Romance (1852), and Tanglewood Tales (1853) are three of his most popular books (1853).
He published “The Life of Franklin Pierce,” a campaign biography of his longtime friend Franklin Pierce, during the 1852 presidential race.
When Pierce was elected president in 1853, Hawthorne was named the American consul in Liverpool, Lancashire.
Hawthorne faithfully and successfully performed his consular duties up to 1857.
After living in Italy for a year and a half, Hawthorne returned to England and wrote: “The Marble Faun” in 1860.
He wrote an essay titled “Chiefly about War Matters” in 1862, which was inspired by his trip to Washington, D.C., at the start of the American Civil War.
His Bigger Works
The Scarlet Letter (1850), is widely regarded as Hawthorne’s finest work. It was one of the first novels in America to be mass-produced, and it sold 2,500 copies in just ten days. Another popular piece, “The House of the Seven Gables” (1851), was inspired by a rumor of a curse in Hawthorne’s own family. His most famous works, aside from these, are “Mosses from an Old Manse” (1846), “The Blithedale Romance” (1852), and “The Marble Fawn” (1860).
Personal Legacy & Life
On July 9, 1842, Hawthorne and Sophia Peabody were wed in the Peabody parlor on West Street in Boston.
The Old Manse in Concord, Massachusetts is where Hawthorne composed “Mosses from an Old Manse,” and the pair relocated there not long after getting married.
Una, named after a heroine in Spenser’s “The Faerie Queene,” and Rose were the couple’s daughters. Julian was their son.
Hawthorne’s health had been deteriorating for a while, and on May 19, 1864, he passed away in Plymouth, New Hampshire, while on a tour of the White Mountains.
In Massachusetts’ Sleep Hollow Cemetery, he was laid to rest.
Estimated Net Worth
One of the wealthiest and most well-known novelists is Nathaniel. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s net worth is roughly $1.5 million, according to our analysis of data from sources like Wikipedia, Forbes, and Business Insider.
Trivia
Hawthorne met author Herman Melville while he was at Lenox. Melville admired Nathaniel Hawthorne and even wrote a poem titled “Moby Dick” in his honor. He subsequently came to realize that the friendship was unrequited, and he discussed his disappointment in this realization in the introduction of “The Piazza Tales.”