Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on July 4, 1804, in Salem, Massachusetts, the son and grandson of proud New England seafarers. In 1825 he graduated from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, and returned to Salem determined to become a writer of short stories. For the next twelve years he was plagued with unhappiness and self-doubts as he struggled to master his craft. He finally secured some small measure of success with the publication of his Twice-Told Tales (1837). His marriage to Sophia Peabody in 1842 was a happy one. The Scarlet Letter (1850), which brought him immediate recognition, was followed by The House of the Seven Gables (1851). After serving four years as the American Consul in Liverpool, England, he traveled in Italy; he returned home to Massachusetts in 1860. Depressed, weary of writing, and failing in health, he died on May 19, 1864, at Plymouth, New Hampshire.

Robert S. Levine is Distinguished University Professor of English at the Univerty of Maryland and the author of numerous books including, most recently, The Failed Promise: Reconstruction, Frederick Douglass, and the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson. He has edited two Norton Critical Editions of The House of the Seven Gables and the John Harvard edition of The Blithedale Romance and is a longstanding member of the Editorial Board of the Nathaniel Hawthorne Review. His next book, After Uncle Tom's Cabin: Harriet Beecher Stowe and the Quest for Interracial Democracy, will be published by Norton late 2026.