When Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1804, the United States was new and unformed. In New England, where his family lived, the somber influence of the Puritan settlers was still strong, and Hawthorne's life and fiction were always marked by undertones of a brooding pessimism. His father was a sea captain who died in Dutch Guiana when his son was four years old. Nathaniel was raised by his eccentric mother in the homes of various relatives, and he spent most of his time alone.

After graduating from Bowdoin College in 1825, Nathaniel was determined to make his way as a writer. For ten years he lived with his family and devoted himself to reading, and to writing allegorical and historical tales of life in colonial New England. During this time, he changed the spelling of his family name from "Hathorne" to "Hawthorne" in an attempt...