On 9 July 1842 Nathaniel Hawthorne and Sophia Peabody were married in a simple ceremony that capped a courtship of nearly five years. Thus Hawthorne, at the age of thirty-eight, assumed his role as head of a domestic circle that grew to include three children: Una, Julian, and Rose. Hawthorne's own childhood was unsettled. He was born on 4 July 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, to Nathaniel and Elizabeth Manning Hathorne (he added the w to the spelling years later). His father, a ship's captain, died when he was four, and Hawthorne's youth was spent between Salem and the Manning home in Maine. He attended Bowdoin College from 1821 to 1825, returning to his mother's home in Salem to begin writing in earnest.

Sophia Peabody was born in Salem to Eliza and Nathaniel Peabody on 21 September 1809. Much of her education was guided by her sister Elizabeth, and Peabody proved a good student with an interest...