The Blithedale Romance

The Blithedale Romance, based in part on his Brook Farm experiences, was first published in 1852. Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on July 4, 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, to a sea captain and his wife. Both his parents came from old and proud Salem families who were living with memories of better days. Hawthorne himself never forgot his ancestors, and especially the curse of the persecutions inflicted by the witch-hunters among them. In 1821 he entered Bowdoin College, where one of his best friends was Franklin Pierce who, in later years as President of the U. S., appointed him U. S. Consul to Liverpool. After college Hawthorne entered a twelve-year wilderness period of literary incubation and isolation from the world at large, which was broken once a year by summer travels. After an interlude at Utopian Brook Farm in 1841, he married Sophia Peabody on July 9, 1842. His period of greatest productivity followed. He died on May 19, 1864 at Plymouth, New Hampshire.