The Nathaniel Hawthorne Birthplace is the home where American author Nathaniel Hawthorne was born. The structure is located in Salem, Massachusetts, having been relocated to the grounds of the House of the Seven Gables and restored by the non-profit House of the Seven Gables Settlement Association. [1] Admission is free to Salem residents year-round and to the general public during winter months; a fee is charged during summer months. [2]
The house, originally standing at 27 Union Street, was built sometime between 1730 and 1745 for a Boston mariner named Joshua Pickman. [3] The land had been deeded to Pickman by his father-in-law Joseph Hardy, and may have recycled structural timbers from a 17th-century Pickman house that earlier stood on its site. [4] Hawthorne's grandfather Daniel Hathorne (the "w" was not yet added to the family name) lived here with his wife Rachel Phelps as early as 1765. [5] He purchased the building in 1772. [3]
After a courtship of more than six years, Nathaniel Hathorne Sr. married Elizabeth Clarke Manning on August 2, 1801, when the new Mrs. Hathorne was already pregnant. [6] She had known the family for many years; only a small garden separated her own family house from the Hathorne's Union Street home. [5] Unable to afford a home of their own, the couple moved into the Union Street house, where the groom's widowed mother and three unmarried siblings already lived. [5] The Mannings, Hawthorne's maternal family, were wealthier and, by the time of the Hathornes' wedding, had bought most of the property on Union Street and Herbert Street. [5]
Hawthorne was born in the house on July 4, 1804, and lived in the house until his father died at sea when the future author was four years old. The family then moved into property owned by the Mannings on Herbert Street. Sophia Peabody, who would eventually become the author's wife, moved with her family in 1812 to a home on Union Street at the Essex Street corner. [7] The Hawthornes as a married couple would later live in Salem at 18 Chestnut Street (where son Julian Hawthorne was born) and 14 Mall Street (where The Scarlet Letter was written). [8]
Years later, in 1853, Hawthorne wrote of his birthplace in the National Review: "I was born in the town of Salem, Massachusetts, in a house built by my grandfather, who was a maritime personage. The old household estate was in another part of the town, and had descended in the family ever since the settlement of the country; but this old man of the sea exchanged it for a lot of land situated near the wharves, and convenient to his business, where he built the house... and laid out a garden, where I rolled on a grass-plot under an apple-tree and picked abundant currants." [9] His mother Elizabeth also described Hawthorne's birthplace in a letter to one of his daughters, circa 1865: "Your father was born in 1804, on the 4th of July, in the chamber over the little parlour in the house in Union Street, which then belonged to my grandmother [Rachel Phelps] Hathorne, who lived in one part of it... I remember that one morning my mother called my brother into her room, next to the one where we slept, and told him that his father was dead. He left very little property, and my grandfather [Richard] Manning took us home." [10]
In 1958, the home was moved, without a later ell that had been added, to its current location at 27 Hardy Street on the grounds of the Turner-Ingersoll mansion, which Hawthorne had made famous in his novel The House of the Seven Gables (1851). [3]
It reflects typical architecture for the period: a central chimney, gambrel roof, front and back stairways, and a post-and-lintel doorway. The ground floor is laid out with kitchen to the right and main room to the left. The second floor has front and back rooms on each side. Most of the interior has been preserved intact.
Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short story writer. His works often focus on history, morality, and religion.
Salem is a historic coastal city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States, located on the North Shore of Greater Boston. Continuous settlement by Europeans began in 1626 with English colonists. Salem was one of the most significant seaports trading commodities in early American history. Prior to the dissolution of county governments in Massachusetts in 1999, it served as one of two county seats for Essex County, alongside Lawrence.
The Scarlet Letter: A Romance is a work of historical fiction by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne, published in 1850. Set in the Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony during the years 1642 to 1649, the novel tells the story of Hester Prynne, who conceives a daughter with a man to whom she is not married and then struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity. As punishment, she must wear a scarlet letter 'A'. Containing a number of religious and historic allusions, the book explores themes of legalism, sin and guilt.
John Hathorne was a merchant and magistrate of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Salem, Massachusetts. He is best known for his early and vocal role as one of the leading judges in the Salem witch trials.
The Marble Faun: Or, The Romance of Monte Beni, also known by the British title Transformation, was the last of the four major romances by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and was published in 1860. The Marble Faun, written on the eve of the American Civil War, is set in a fantastical Italy. The romance mixes elements of a fable, pastoral, gothic novel, and travel guide.
Sophia Amelia Hawthorne was an American painter and illustrator as well as the wife of author Nathaniel Hawthorne. She also published her journals and various articles.
The House of the Seven Gables is a 1668 colonial mansion in Salem, Massachusetts, named for its gables. It was made famous by Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1851 novel The House of the Seven Gables. The house is now a non-profit museum, with an admission fee charged for tours, as well as an active settlement house with programs for the local immigrant community including ESL and citizenship classes. It was built for Captain John Turner and stayed with the family for three generations.
The Snow-Image, and Other Twice-Told Tales is a collection of short stories by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne. Released in late 1851 with a copyright of 1852, it is the final collection of tales by Hawthorne published in his lifetime.
William Davis Ticknor I was an American publisher in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, and a founder of the publishing house Ticknor and Fields.
The Old Manse is a historic manse in Concord, Massachusetts, United States, notable for its literary associations. It is open to the public as a nonprofit museum owned and operated by the Trustees of Reservations. The house is located on Monument Street, with the Concord River just behind it. The property neighbors the North Bridge, a part of Minute Man National Historical Park.
The Wayside is a historic house in Concord, Massachusetts. The earliest part of the home may date to 1717. Later it successively became the home of the young Louisa May Alcott and her family, who named it Hillside, author Nathaniel Hawthorne and his family, and children's writer Margaret Sidney. It became the first site with literary associations acquired by the National Park Service and is now open to the public as part of Minute Man National Historical Park.
Twice-Told Tales is a short story collection in two volumes by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The first volume was published in the spring of 1837 and the second in 1842. The stories had all been previously published in magazines and annuals, hence the name.
Julian Hawthorne was an American writer and journalist, the son of novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne and Sophia Peabody. He wrote numerous poems, novels, short stories, mysteries and detective fiction, essays, travel books, biographies, and histories.
The House of the Seven Gables: A Romance is a Gothic novel written beginning in mid-1850 by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne and published in April 1851 by Ticknor and Fields of Boston. The novel follows a New England family and their ancestral home. In the book, Hawthorne explores themes of guilt, retribution, and atonement, and colors the tale with suggestions of the supernatural and witchcraft. The setting for the book was inspired by the Turner-Ingersoll Mansion, a gabled house in Salem, Massachusetts, belonging to Hawthorne's cousin Susanna Ingersoll, as well as ancestors of Hawthorne who had played a part in the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. The book was well received upon publication and later had a strong influence on the work of H. P. Lovecraft. The House of the Seven Gables has been adapted several times to film and television.
A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys (1851) is a children's book by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne in which he retells several Greek myths. It was followed by a sequel, Tanglewood Tales.
Ticknor and Fields was an American publishing company based in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded as a bookstore in 1832, the business published many 19th-century American authors, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry James, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Henry David Thoreau, and Mark Twain. It also became an early publisher of The Atlantic Monthly and North American Review.
The Charter Street Historic District encompasses a small remnant of the oldest part of Salem, Massachusetts that has since been surrounded by more modern development. It includes three properties on Charter Street: the Pickman House, the Grimshawe House, and the Charter Street Cemetery, or Central Burying Point. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.
The Token (1829–1842) was an American annual, illustrated gift book, containing stories, poems and other light and entertaining reading. In 1833, it became The Token and Atlantic Souvenir.
"Hawthorne and His Mosses" (1850) is an essay and critical review by Herman Melville of the short story collection Mosses from an Old Manse written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1846. Published pseudonymously by "a Virginian spending July in Vermont", it appeared in The Literary World magazine in two issues: August 17 and August 24, 1850. It has been called the "most famous literary manifesto of the American nineteenth century."
William Hathorne was a New England politician, judge and merchant who was Commissioner for Massachusetts Bay and Speaker of the General Court. He arrived in America on the ship Arbella, and is the first American ancestor of author Nathaniel Hawthorne.