About the author: Nathaniel Hawthorne lived in the early-mid 19th century and made his living as an American novelist and short story writer, now most famous for The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables, as well as for his collection of short stories, Twice-told Tales. He was born in the city of Salem, MA, and attended Bowdoin college, where he met future poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He wrote his first novel, The Scarlet Letter, in 1850. During much of that decade, he and his family lived in Concord, where he was acquainted with transcendentalists such as Emerson and Thoreau.
About his work: In Twice-told Tales can be found many classics which we still read today in introduction to American literature classes such as “The Minister’s Black Veil” and “The May-Pole of Merry Mount.” Other famous short stories (which I recommend reading before the GRE subject test in literature, if you don’t have time to include more of Hawthorne on your reading list) are “My Kinsman, Major Molineux” and “Young Goodman Brown.” Hawthorne’s works belong to dark romanticism 
and are filled with history, references to ancestry and its effects on the present. In short, his major themes are psychological guilt, sin, and redemption, played out in families over time (often with romance included). Additionally, his stories are almost always historical in nature and are in or around Salem. They often discuss class issues, reflect negatively on harsh Puritanical beliefs, and his later works similarly reflected harshly on transcendentalism.
What I thought: I just re-read The House of the Seven Gables and I guess I should be glad that Ralph Waldo Emerson (who I LOVE LOVE LOVE) purportedly said of Hawthorne: "Nathaniel Hawthorne's reputation as a writer is a very pleasing fact, because his writing is not good for anything, and this is a tribute to the man."1 Apparently, critics have spent the last 60 years focusing on his symbolism, which I can understand the doing, since he is SO boring that there isn’t much else to think about. However, his symbolism is so shockingly obvious that I would get bored with that, too.
Anyway, the novel essentially covers the story of the Pyncheons and the Maules. The first Pyncheon stole the land on which the house of the 7 gables is built from the first Maule by having him executed in the Salem witch trials, and so a curse has haunted the Pyncheon blood ever since (“May you choke on your own blood” said the dying Maule).
Now, in 1851, in the time during which Hawthorne writes, the house is owned by Hepzibah Pyncheon, an old maid who worships her brother Clifford, unjustly imprisoned for ‘murder’ by his cousin, a judge. At the beginning of the story, this Clifford is released and comes back to live in the 7 gabled mansion with his sister and Phoebe, a young and merry country cousin of the siblings who is happy and naive. The three live together in one gable while an artist, Holgrave, rents another gable. The character of this artist is fashioned on Hawthorne himself, and the romance twixt him and Phoebe is based on the romance between Hawthorne and his future wife, Sophia.
In the end, after practically nothing happening except for the judge dying by choking on his own blood, the siblings inherit all of the judge’s riches. Phoebe and Holgrave get married. Hawthorne gets to postulate about psychology a load. I got to put the book aside forever. We were all happy.
1. Nelson, Randy F. (editor). The Almanac of American Letters. Los Altos, California: William Kaufmann, Inc., 1981: 150. ISBN 0-86576-008-X.
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