Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts on July 4, 1804 to an esteemed family headed by Nathaniel Hathorne and his wife, Elizabeth Manning (The author added the "W" to his name later in life). Hawthorne had two sisters (one older and one younger), and after his father's death of yellow fever in Surinam in 1808, the family lived for ten years with his mother's side of the family. Hawthorne and his immediate family lived in the third story of a house that was also home to his grandparents and eight unwed aunts and uncles. In 1818, his mother moved the family to Raymond, Maine, where they lived in the home that Hawthorne's Uncle Richard built in anticipation of making Maine the new center for the Manning family.

Hawthorne attended Bowdoin College and, following his graduation in 1825, returned to the Manning house in Salem to pursue his writing. In 1828, Hawthorne...