American novelist, short story writer, and essayist.

Hawthorne is an acknowledged master of American fiction. His novel The Scarlet Letter (1850) is one of the most-read classics of American literature, and several of his short stories are ranked as masterpieces of the genre. Hawthorne's works reflect his dark vision of human nature, as he frequently portrays Puritanism as an expression of humanity's potential for cruelty, obsession, and intolerance. His strange, haunting tales of guilt, isolation, and death betray his fascination with the macabre even as they plumb the depths of human psychology and moral responsibility. With Edgar Allan Poe, Hawthorne was instrumental in the evolution of American Gothic fiction, moving away from sensationalism to focus on the aesthetic and emotional response to horror and dissecting the mental processes of his characters. His highly allegorical works use Gothic conventions to explore questions about human...