50 Fun Facts About Nathaniel Hawthorne

Which Emma Stone teen comedy from 2010 takes its premise from Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter?

Easy A has its heroine stitch a red letter onto her clothes after reading the novel in English class. The writer set out to give the 1850 book a high-school update.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, born in Salem in 1804, shared his birthday with which American national holiday?

Independence Day 1804 was the date. The house where he was born was moved across Salem in 1958 to stand beside the mansion that inspired one of his novels.

Which letter did Hawthorne add to his surname, probably to distance himself from a notorious ancestor?

W was the addition, made in his early twenties soon after college. He was born with the shorter spelling used by his Puritan forebears.

What role did Nathaniel Hawthorne's great-great-grandfather play in the Salem witch trials of 1692?

A judge who questioned the accused, he is not known to have repented, unlike his colleague Samuel Sewall. That inherited guilt runs through the author's fiction.

Which novel did Herman Melville dedicate to Nathaniel Hawthorne a year after the two met at a picnic?

Moby-Dick was taking shape when the two writers became friends in 1850. Days after they met, Melville's long unsigned review praising the older man's stories appeared in print.

Which band grew up in Hawthorne, a Los Angeles suburb named after the author Nathaniel Hawthorne?

The Beach Boys' Wilson brothers were raised there, and a landmark now marks their childhood home. The town took the writer's name because a founder's daughter shared his birthday.

In The Scarlet Letter, the embroidered 'A' on Hester Prynne's dress brands her as guilty of what?

Adultery is the charge: with her husband long absent, she bears a child and refuses to name the father. She is sentenced to wear the letter for life.

Which Concord writer planted a vegetable garden for Hawthorne and his bride before they moved in?

Henry David Thoreau dug and planted it in 1842 as the newlyweds prepared to arrive. A recreation of that heirloom garden grows on the grounds today.

Hawthorne wrote an 1852 campaign biography for which college friend, who went on to win the presidency?

Franklin Pierce won the White House and rewarded his biographer with a well-paid diplomatic post abroad. The two stayed close until the author's death.

In which Puritan town, rather than Hawthorne's native Salem, is The Scarlet Letter set?

Boston in the 1640s is the setting, about fifty years before the witch trials many readers associate with the book. The story opens with a crowd gathering to watch a punishment.

At which New England college were Nathaniel Hawthorne and a future US president students in the 1820s?

Bowdoin was picked partly for its low tuition, with an uncle paying the bills. He later called himself an idle student who neglected the rules to nurse his own fancies.

Which future poet was Hawthorne's college classmate and, decades later, a pallbearer at his funeral?

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow graduated in the same class of 1825. A week after his first story collection came out, the novelist posted a copy to his old classmate.

What was the occupation of Nathaniel Hawthorne's father, who died of yellow fever in Suriname in 1808?

A sea captain, he belonged to Salem's East India Marine Society. His widow then moved her three children in with her own relatives, the Mannings.

In which state did the young Hawthorne roam the woods near Sebago Lake, a time he recalled fondly?

Maine was home for part of his boyhood, in a house his uncles built at Raymond. He remembered the country as wild, with only scattered clearings among the forest.

Which utopian community did Hawthorne join in 1841, where his job was shovelling a hill of manure?

Brook Farm's manure heap was nicknamed the Gold Mine. He joined mainly to save money for his marriage, paid a $1,000 deposit and left within the year.

Which Salem-born painter, introduced to Nathaniel Hawthorne by her sister, married him in 1842?

Sophia Peabody was one of the first American women to earn a living as an artist. She had been mostly bedridden with headaches, which seem to have eased after the two met.

Hawthorne worked in which kind of government office, the setting of The Scarlet Letter's long preface?

A custom house employed him twice, the second time as surveyor for the port of Salem. He told a friend that mornings there undid all the writing he managed later in the day.

Which English port city was Nathaniel Hawthorne sent to as United States consul from 1853 to 1857?

Liverpool was considered the best-paid post in the foreign service at the time. He commuted to the consulate by steamboat across the River Mersey from Rock Ferry.

Which president did Hawthorne meet at the White House before writing 'Chiefly About War Matters'?

Abraham Lincoln kept the visitors waiting about half an hour while he ate breakfast. The magazine's editor asked the author to soften his unflattering sketch of the man.

Nathaniel Hawthorne lies on Authors' Ridge, near Emerson and the Alcotts, in which Concord cemetery?

Sleepy Hollow became his resting place in 1864. His wife and a daughter, first buried in London, were moved to lie beside him in 2006.

In The Scarlet Letter, what name does Hester Prynne give the daughter she calls her only treasure?

Pearl is so named because she was dearly bought, costing her mother everything she had. Shunned like her mother, the girl grows up with no playmates.

In The Scarlet Letter, which admired young minister is secretly the father of Hester Prynne's child?

Arthur Dimmesdale keeps silent while his health fails and a vengeful lodger torments him. He confesses in public at last and dies in her arms.

In The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne's missing husband returns under the name Roger Chillingworth, working as what?

A physician is the role that lets him lodge with the ailing man he suspects of fathering her child. He reached the colony late after being held captive on the way.

In The Scarlet Letter, on what structure must Hester Prynne stand for three hours of public shame?

The scaffold appears three times in the novel: at the opening, in a secret midnight vigil, and at the final public confession.

Late in The Scarlet Letter, townspeople who admire Hester Prynne's strength say her 'A' means what?

Able is the new reading, earned by years of nursing the sick and helping the poor. A badge meant as lifelong shame ends up as a mark of respect.

Which actress played Hester Prynne opposite Gary Oldman in the 1995 film of The Scarlet Letter?

Demi Moore defended the film's rewritten ending, arguing that the novel was too dense to work on screen as written. Robert Duvall co-starred.

In The House of the Seven Gables, which family is said to be cursed by a man hanged for wizardry?

The Pyncheons built their mansion on land the family's founder seized from the man he accused. The colonel was then found dead in his armchair at the housewarming.

Which horror star played Clifford in the 1940 film of Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables?

Vincent Price came back to the story in 1963, starring in all three parts of a film anthology of Hawthorne tales that included a loose retelling of the novel.

Which Hawthorne novel, narrated by the poet Miles Coverdale, is set on a utopian farming commune?

The Blithedale Romance is the only one of his novels told in the first person. Its drowning scene echoes a night when he helped search a river for a local woman's body.

Hawthorne found the idea for The Marble Faun in a statue in the Capitoline Museum of which city?

Rome was where he saw the Faun of Praxiteles in early 1858, during a long family tour. British publishers renamed the finished novel Transformation against his wishes.

In 'Young Goodman Brown', what is the name of the wife the hero leaves at home for one night?

Faith pleads with him to stay. By morning, unsure whether he dreamed the gathering in the forest, he can no longer trust her or his devout neighbours.

In 'Dr. Heidegger's Experiment', four elderly guests drink water from which legendary source?

The Fountain of Youth water first revives a withered flower, then makes the guests young and every bit as foolish as before. Old again by the end, they set off for Florida to find more.

In 'Rappaccini's Daughter', Beatrice has become deadly to others after being raised among what?

Poisonous plants fill the locked garden her father tends in Padua. A student who falls for her finds that his own breath has started to kill insects.

In 'The Birth-Mark', Aylmer fatally tries to remove a mark on his wife's cheek shaped like what?

A small hand, red against her cheek, is her only flaw, and he cannot bear it. His potion fades the mark little by little, and she dies as it disappears.

In Hawthorne's 'Feathertop', the witch Mother Rigby brings what to life and sends it courting in town?

A scarecrow built to guard her garden, he must keep puffing a pipe to stay alive. When a mirror shows him what he really is, he throws the pipe away.

Hawthorne based 'The Great Stone Face' on the Old Man of the Mountain, a rock profile in which state?

New Hampshire put the craggy profile on its licence plates and its statehood quarter. The granite ledges collapsed in 2003, a century and a half after the story appeared.

Hawthorne's A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys retells which body of ancient stories for young readers?

Greek myths including King Midas, Pandora's box and Medusa are told by a student to a circle of children. A sequel followed two years later.

Hawthorne's 'The Celestial Railroad' retells which 17th-century Christian allegory as a train ride?

The Pilgrim's Progress sends its hero to heaven on foot, while Hawthorne's passengers take the easy way by rail. The joke is on the comfortable religious ideas of his own day.

Which summer music venue, on an estate where Hawthorne rented a cottage, is named after one of his books?

Tanglewood has been the summer home of a famous American symphony orchestra since 1937. The 1853 book it echoes retells ancient legends for children.

The clergyman thought to have inspired 'The Minister's Black Veil' hid his face after accidentally doing what?

Killing a friend by accident as a young man led Joseph Moody to wear a black veil from the funeral until his own death. He was nicknamed Handkerchief Moody.

Hawthorne won a college bet with Jonathan Cilley by staying unmarried until 1836; which drink was the stake?

Madeira wine was the prize. Cilley was elected to Congress that same year and died two years later after a duel with a fellow member of the House.

With what did Hawthorne and his wife scratch messages into the window panes of their first home?

A diamond of hers cut the affectionate lines into the glass of his upstairs study in 1843. One line records that it was inscribed at sunset.

Which Concord house, built for Emerson's grandfather, did the newlywed Hawthornes rent for $100 a year?

The Old Manse stands by the North Bridge, where its first owners watched the battle of 1775. Hawthorne wrote about twenty tales and sketches in his three years there.

Which Concord house, once the girlhood home of Louisa May Alcott, did Hawthorne buy and rename?

The Wayside got its name because it stood so close to the road that it could be mistaken for a coach stop. The Alcotts had called it Hillside.

Hawthorne's daughter Rose became a nun and founded an order to nurse poor patients with which disease?

Cancer patients were then refused by New York's general hospitals, so she began nursing them in a three-room cold-water flat. Her order is the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne.

Hawthorne's son Julian, also a novelist, went to federal prison after a 1913 conviction for what?

Mail fraud charges followed his sale of millions of shares in a silver mine that did not exist. He always maintained his innocence, and wrote a book against prisons on his release.

What did Hawthorne do with the unsold copies of Fanshawe, his first novel, after it failed to sell?

Burned them, and he was so secretive about the book that his widow later insisted he had never written a novel by that name. Printing it had cost him $100.

Which fellow writer of dark tales praised Hawthorne's originality in an 1842 review of Twice-Told Tales?

Edgar Allan Poe wrote the two-part review for Graham's Magazine. He admired the style but had little patience for the allegory in the stories.

In 'Ethan Brand', the former kiln-keeper comes home claiming to have found what after a long search?

The Unpardonable Sin was also the tale's original title. He says it grew inside himself, and by morning only his skeleton is left in the kiln.

In 'The Artist of the Beautiful', watchmaker Owen Warland gives Annie a box holding which invention?

A butterfly so lifelike that she cannot tell whether it is real or a machine lands on her finger. Her child crushes it, yet its maker is not upset.