Nathaniel Hawthorn was born in Salem Massachusetts on July 4, 1804. His birthplace is now a museum. His father, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Senior was a sea captain who died in 1808. His death was caused by yellow fever when Nathaniel Junior was four years old. His mother made him live without outside contact. Hawthorne said these were the happiest years of his life, but also gave him the habit of wanting to be alone.
He attended Bowdoin College in Maine, which was financed by his uncle. His friends and classmates were Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and future president Franklin Pierce. He wrote many things before he was published in 1837. Many feel that Hawthorne's aloneness resulted in a much meditated fiction.
In 1839, Hawthorne was hired as a weigher and gauger at the Boston Custom House. He also became engaged to Sophia Peabody, who was a illustrator and transcendentalist. To possibly find a home for him and his fiancé he joined the transcendentalist utopian community. He......
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