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A nocturnal journey with the devil and a strange vision in the forest lead Goodman Brown to regard his fellow townspeople as devil worshipers.
Uninterested in conventional professions such as law, medicine, or the ministry, Nathaniel chose instead to rely "for support upon my pen." After graduation, he returned to his hometown, wrote short stories and sketches, and chanced the spelling of his surname to "Hawthorne." Hawthorne's coterie consisted of transcendentalist thinkers, including Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Although he did not subscribe entirely to the group's philosophy, he lived for six months at Brook Farm, a cooperative living community the transcendentalists established in West Roxbury, Massachusetts.
On July 9, 1942, Hawthorne married a follower of Emerson, Sophia Peabody, with whom he had a daughter, Una, and a son, Julian. The couple purchased a mansion in Concord, Massachusetts, that previously had been occupied by author Louisa May Alcott. Frequently in financial difficulty, Hawthorne worked at the custom houses in Salem and Boston to support his family and his writing. His peaceful life was interrupted when his college friend, Franklin Pierce, now president of the United States, appointed him U.S. consul at Liverpool, England, where he served for four years.
The publication of The Scarlet Letter in 1850 changed the way society viewed Puritanism. Considered his masterpiece, the novel focuses on Hawthorne's recurrent themes of sin, guilt, and punishment. Some critics have attributed his sense of guilt to his ancestors' connection with the persecution of Quakers in seventeenth-century New England and their prominent role in the Salem witchcraft trials in the 1690s.
On May 19, 1864, Hawthorne died in Plymouth, New Hampshire, leaving behind several unfinished novels that were published posthumously. He is buried at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts.
Author biography from the Barnes & Noble Classics edition of The Scarlet Letter.
Among Hawthorne's peers at Maine's Bowdoin College: author Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Franklin Pierce, who would later become the country's 14th president.
In its first week of publication, The Scarlet Letter sold 4,000 copies.
Hawthorne died on May 19, 1864, at the Pemigewasset House in Plymouth, New Hampshire. Ironically, former president Franklin Pierce had advised him to go there for his health.
Anonymous
Posted February 21, 2013
This a classic read by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It is a great short story centering around a meeting with the devil and the consequences. It has led the way for a number of modern tales inspiring those writers (including Stephen King) to do their own take on the subject.
A short story thus a short read and very reader friendly. Will leave you thinking about the lifetime consequences of rubbing elbows with evil.
AndrewGray
Posted January 8, 2012
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “Young Goodman Brown”, a curious young man makes good on a promise to meet with a mysterious stranger. In the city of Salem, where Goodman Brown lives, most of the people of the town follow a strong devotion to their religion of Christianity. Through out this story the author has made browns curiosity stronger. Even though Goodman Brown had decided to come into the forest and meet with the devil, he still is frightened and becomes unsure about the choices that he has made. Female purity is one of the major themes that Hawthorne has used to explain this story. The purity is the steadying force for Goodman Brown as he wonders whether to renounce his religion and join the devil. Hawthorne shows this from the beginning of the story when he leaves his wife Faith; Goodman Brown swears that after that one night he would forever be with his wife faith. Hawthorne does a great job at continuing this theme through out the story with the characters; Young Goodman Brown continued to hold on to that belief throughout his trials in the forest, he swore that as long as his wife Faith stayed holy, he would be able to resist himself from the devil. Many readers of this story could come to the assumption that all of the events happening to Youngman Brown may have just all been a dream. Hawthorne’s use of words through out the story allows the reader to decide whether or not these events were actually happening to Young Goodman Brown. After reading the story you learn that a humans curiosity can sometimes come between what is reality or not.
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Posted January 16, 2013
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Overview
A nocturnal journey with the devil and a strange vision in the forest lead Goodman Brown to regard his fellow townspeople as devil worshipers.