II.

Early Years

Hawthorne was born on July 4, 1804, in Salem, Massachusetts, into an old Puritan family. After graduating from Bowdoin College in 1825, he returned to his Salem home, living in semi-seclusion and writing. His work received little public recognition, however, and Hawthorne attempted to destroy all copies of his novel Fanshawe (1828), which he had published at his own expense. During this period he also contributed articles and short stories to periodicals. Several of the stories were published in Twice-Told Tales (1837), which, although not a financial success, established Hawthorne as a leading writer. These early works are largely historical sketches and symbolic and allegorical tales, dealing with moral conflicts and the effects of Puritanism on colonial New England.

Unable to earn a living by literary work, in 1839 Hawthorne took a job as a weigher in the Boston Custom House. Two years later he returned to writing and produced a series of sketches of New England history for children, Grandfather's Chair: A History for Youth (1841). The same year he joined the communal society at Brook Farm near Boston, hoping to be able to live in such comfort that he could marry and still have time to devote to his writing. The demands of the farm were too great, however; Hawthorne was unable to continue his writing while doing farm chores, and after six months he withdrew from the community. In 1842 he married Sophia Amelia Peabody of Salem and settled in Concord, Massachusetts, in a house called the Old Manse. During the four years he lived in Concord, Hawthorne wrote a number of tales that were later published as Mosses from an Old Manse (1846). They include “Roger Malvin's Burial”, “Rappaccini's Daughter”, and “Young Goodman Brown”, tales in which Hawthorne's preoccupation with the effects of pride, guilt, sin, and secrecy are combined with a continued emphasis on symbolism and allegory.