Nathaniel Hawthorne Magill's Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition

Biography

Nathaniel Hawthorne was descended from Puritan colonists responsible for persecuting the accused witches of seventeenth century Massachusetts. His sense of guilt over the superstitious cruelty of his ancestors is reflected in much of his writing. His father, a sea captain, died when Nathaniel was only four years old. That the writer grew up without a male role model and was surrounded by adoring female relatives helps to account for his personality, which has been consistently described by biographers as shy, inhibited, narcissistic, and introverted. Ironically, he was...

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