The Scarlet Letter

1. The Scarlet Letter Leah Pionati Period CD

2. Nathaniel Hawthorne Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on July 4, 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts. He was of Puritan descent. William Hathorne was included among his ancestors. Hawthorne added a “w” to his last name in order to hide himself from his family’s involvement in the witch trials. He graduated from Bowdoin College in 1825. In 1828 he anonymously published his first book titled Fanshawe. In 1837 he published a collection of short stories that was titled as Twice-Told Tales. He entered a career as a Boston Custom House measurer in 1839. In 1842 he married Sophia Peabody. They had three children. In 1846 he published Mosses from an Old Manse. He also was forced to return to the Boston Custom House because of lack of financial support from his writings. In 1848 he lost his job due to new presidency. He now had time to write his most famous novel The Scarlet Letter. He then wrote The House of the Seven Gables in 1851. He also wrote The Blithedale Romance in 1852. He wrote one more novel titled The Marble Faun in 1860. Shortly after he wrote the novel he fell ill. He passed away in his sleep on May 19, 1864, in Plymouth, New Hampshire. Carl Van Doren, an author that wrote The American Novel included a review that said "When Hawthorne published The Scarlet Letter in 1850 he could not profit by a long series of native experiments in the art of the novel but had to initiate the mode in which he has since seemed supreme. And yet The Scarlet Letter represents in Hawthorne's own career the fruit of an apprenticeship to art the like of which no other American man of letters has demanded of himself." Source Info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathaniel_Hawthorne