Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American author born July 4, 1804, in Salem, Massachusetts. He was actually born Nathaniel Hathorne, but his ancestry included a couple of harsh judges from whom he wished to distance himself, so he added a “w” to his name. When he was just 4 years old, his father died and his family moved in with some wealthy uncles. Hawthorne suffered a leg injury that kept him immobile for several months, helping him to develop his love of reading and writing. Thanks to his rich uncles, he was able to attend Bowdoin College and become friends with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Franklin Pierce.

After college, Hawthorne returned home and began to write and self-publish several short stories. He eventually moved to the Brook Farm community, where he became acquainted with Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. While he didn’t agree with transcendentalism, he used the time there to save up money for a marriage. He married Sophia Peabody on July 9, 1842, and moved to a home he rented from Emerson. The couple eventually had three children.

His growing family required him to get a job that paid more than what short story writing was bringing in. He became a surveyor in the Salem Custom House in 1846. But when Zachary Taylor was elected President, Hawthorne was ousted due to political favoritism. (This should sound familiar to you!) But the loss of his job gave him time to write his best-known work, The Scarlet Letter. This was one of the first mass-produced publications in the United States, and Hawthorne became famous.

Hawthorne continued to move and write, befriending other now-famous authors such as Moby Dick’s Herman Melville. He spent some time in England as an American Consul there (appointed by his college friend Pierce), during which time he derived inspiration for his novel Our Old Home. He eventually moved back to Massachusetts for good in 1860 after publishing his final novel. His health began to fail rapidly, and his writing became incoherent. He refused medical help and died in his sleep on May 19, 1864.