Nathaniel Hawthorne

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Follow a dramatization of Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic American short story “Dr. Heidegger's Experiment”

Explore Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story “Dr. Heidegger's Experiment” with Clifton Fadiman

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Nathaniel Hawthorne summary

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Q: Why is Nathaniel Hawthorne important?

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–64) is regarded as one of the greatest fiction writers in American literature. He was a skillful craftsman with an architectonic sense of form, as displayed in the tightly woven structure of his works, and a master of prose style, which he used to clearly reveal his characters’ psychological and moral depths.

Q: What was Nathaniel Hawthorne’s family like?

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s family had lived in Salem , Massachusetts, since the 1600s. One ancestor was a magistrate who, in staunchly defending Puritanism , sentenced a Quaker woman to public whipping. Another was a judge in the Salem witch trials . During the 1700s the family went into decline—perhaps, Nathaniel was to think, because of his ancestors’ behaviour.

Q: What did Nathaniel Hawthorne do for a living?

Nathaniel Hawthorne was a writer but struggled to make a living from his writing. To make ends meet, he resorted to working as a customs officer in Boston , living briefly at the utopian commune Brook Farm , and serving as U.S. consul in Liverpool , Lancashire.

American writer

Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Last Updated: Mar 12, 2024 • Article History

Nathaniel Hawthorne

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Category: Arts & Culture

Born:: July 4, 1804, Salem, Massachusetts, U.S.

Died:: May 19, 1864, Plymouth, New Hampshire (aged 59)

Awards And Honors:: Hall of Fame (1900)

Notable Works:: “Doctor Heidegger’s Experiment”; “Fanshawe”; “Mosses from an Old Manse”; “My Kinsman, Major Molineux”; “Rappaccini’s Daughter”; “Roger Malvin’s Burial”; “Tanglewood Tales for Girls and Boys”; “The Blithedale Romance”; “The Celestial Railroad”; “The House of the Seven Gables”; “The Marble Faun”; “The Scarlet Letter”; “Twice-Told Tales”; “Young Goodman Brown”

Movement / Style:: American Renaissance

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Why is Nathaniel Hawthorne important?

What was Nathaniel Hawthorne’s family like?

What did Nathaniel Hawthorne do for a living?

Nathaniel Hawthorne (born July 4, 1804, Salem, Massachusetts, U.S.—died May 19, 1864, Plymouth, New Hampshire) was an American novelist and short-story writer who was a master of the allegorical and symbolic tale. One of the greatest fiction writers in American literature, he is best known for The Scarlet Letter (1850) and The House of the Seven Gables (1851). Hawthorne’s ancestors had lived in Salem since the 17th century. His earliest American ancestor, William Hathorne (Nathaniel added the w to the name when he began to write), was a magistrate who had sentenced a Quaker woman to public whipping. He had ...(100 of 2091 words)

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