Nathaniel Hawthorne

Born in Salem in 1804 into a family with deep Puritan roots, Hawthorne graduated from Bowdoin College in 1825 and published his first novel three years later - then spent years trying to bury it. His short stories gathered steam through the 1830s, collected as Twice-Told Tales in 1837. He joined Brook Farm's transcendentalist experiment, married Sophia Peabody in 1842, and bounced between Concord, Salem, and the Berkshires while writing. The Scarlet Letter landed in 1850 and made his name, followed by a string of novels steeped in what critics would call dark romanticism: moral allegories shot through with psychological shadow and the conviction that sin runs in human blood. A political favor sent him to Europe as consul before he returned to Concord, where he died in 1864.