SOURCE: "Early Years," in Hawthorne,Macmillan, 1967, pp. 22-40.

In the following excerpt from a work originally published in 1879, James examines Nathaniel Hawthorne's Puritan ancestry and discusses the influence that John Hathorne had on his writings.

Nathaniel Hawthorne was by race of the clearest Puritan strain. His earliest American ancestor (who wrote the name 'Hathorne'—the shape in which it was transmitted to Nathaniel, who inserted the w,) was the younger son of a Wiltshire family, whose residence, according to a note of our author's in 1837, was 'Wigcastle, Wigton'. Hawthorne, in the note in question, mentions the gentleman who was at that time the head of the family; but it does not appear that he at any period renewed acquaintance with his English kinsfolk. Major William Hathorne came out to Massachusetts in the early years of the Puritan settlement….

He was one of the band of companions of the...