1. Nathaniel Hawthorne I have not lived, but only dreamed about living.
The greatest obstacle to being heroic is the doubt whether one may not be going to prove one's self a fool; the truest heroism is, to resist the doubt; and the profoundest wisdom, to know when it ought to be resisted, and when to be obeyed.
The wrongdoing of one generation lives into the successive ones...

2. Family History
His great-great-grandfather, William Hathorne, ordered the whipping of Anne Coleman and four others in the streets of Salem.
His great-grandfather, John Hathorne, was the magistrate presiding over the trial of the accused witches of Salem (1692).

3. Childhood Born July 4, 1804 in Salem, MA
Father died when Hawthorne was four years old
Sent to private school once his relatives discovered his storytelling abilities
Sent to Bowdoin College in Maine

4. College Classmates included Franklin Pierce and Henry Longfellow
Pierce- future President of the USA
Longfellow- poet, educator, linguist
Graduated in 1825

5. Reclusive
He first anonymously published short stories and a novel, Fanshawe.
Hawthorne later formally withdrew most of this early work, discounting it as the work of inexperienced youth.
He burned most of his works from these years.

6. Back into Society
Editor for The American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge in 1836
Appointed to the Boston Custom House in 1839
Became engaged to Sophia Peabody, married in 1842

7. Concord
After his marriage to Sophia, moved to the Old Manse in Concord.
Joined the writing circles of Thoreau, Emerson, and Louisa May Alcott.
The Transcendentalists believed that human existence transcended the sensory realm, and rejected formalism in favor of individual intuition and imagination.

8. The Custom House
Between 1846 and 1849 he served as a surveyor of the Salem Custom House.
He was ousted from that job in 1849, when the incoming political party, The Whigs, fired him to put in their own political appointees
Hawthorne wrote a biography for Presidential candidate Pierce for his campaign. Pierce had attended college with Hawthorne.
President Pierce then appointed Hawthorne to serve as the US Consul to Liverpool, England.

9. Influences
His early childhood in Salem and work in the Salem Custom House.
His Puritan family background.
He believed in the existence of the devil.
He believed in determinism, a theory of predestination

10. Final Days Returned to the US from Europe in 1860 Returned to Concord
Became ill and underwent a loss of literary creativity
Journeyed to the White Mountains hoping to restore his health
Died in Plymouth, NH on May 19, 1864
Buried in the Sleepy Hollow cemetery in Concord

11. The Puritans
Puritanism is the religious reform movement of the 16th and 17th centuries seeking to purify the Church of England
Characterized by earnest, intense moral and religious principles such as the necessary covenant relationship with God, the emphasis on preaching and the Holy Spirit’s dominance over reason as the instrument of salvation
America: a Holy Commonwealth and a covenanted community

12. The PILGRIMS
Settlers of Plymouth, MA, the first permanent colony in New England – 1620
Members of the English Separatist Church, which was a radical faction of Puritanism

13. The Salem With Trials May – October 1692: Salem, MA
Constitute a series of investigations and persecutions that caused 19 “witches” to be hanged and many others imprisoned
Period of public hysteria generated by false accusations and coerced confessions