Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864), an American writer born in Salem, Massachusetts, was a descendant of Judge Hathorne of the infamous Salem witch trials. This legacy no doubt influenced a lot of Hawthorne's writings, tales of dark souls enshrouded behind facades of virtue. Most famous for his classics, THE SCARLETT LETTER (1850) and THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES (1851), Hawthorne also wrote stories for children, including TWICE TOLD TALES (1837). However, it was the darker tales, the tales of hushed-hushed sins and dark natures that proved to be his bread and butter. Interestingly, he showed the paradoxes of good and evil; his character Hester Prynne in the end turned out to be more true than those others who condemned her for her sin, including her partner in adultery, the Reverend Dimmesdale.Another of the American classics penned by Hawthorne is the supernatural tale of a young man in search of his wife one evening, who happens upon dark truths about not only his virtuous wife but those pious neighbors he called friends. Read Young Goodman Brown.
