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= __Nathaniel Hawthorne __ =

__Early Life [[image:hawthorne_1.jpg width="186" height="213" align="left" caption="Nathaniel Hawthorne"]]__
Nathaniel was born in Salem, Massachussetts on July 4, 1804. His parents were his father, Nathaniel Hathorne, was a sea captain, and his mother, Elizabeth Clarke Manning Hawthorne. Many of Hawthorne's ancestors were involved in the Salem Witch Trials as persecutors. These parts of his family background played a role in his style of writing and his beliefs. Hawthorne's father died in 1808 when Nathaniel was 4. After his father died, Nathaniel, his mother, and two sisters were all left to depend on their other relatives who were living in Salem and Maine. In his early life Nathaniel had suffered from an leg injury which left him immobile for a short time. During the time of his injury Nathaniel developed his love for reading and thinking. Nathaniel was in isolation from people other than his immediate family, mostly of his mother's side due to his father's death, but he was far from being unhappy.

=__College __=

Because of financial help from his uncles, Nathaniel was able to attend Bowdoin College from 1821 to 1825. Some of Nathaniel's classmates were Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who was a poet, and and future U.S. president Franklin Pierce. Whille attending Bowdoin College, which is in Maine, Nathaniel studied English composition and the classics, which were mostly in Latin. Although not achieving an outstanding academic award, Nathaniel undoubtedly profited from his college education and made loyal, lifelong friends.

__"Solitary Years" __
 ﻿After his attendence at Bowdoin, Nathaniel went through what is known to be called to modern biographers as his "solitary years." The "solitary years" were from 1825 through 1837, and were a time that Nathaniel spent at his mother's home in Salem, Massachusetts. During this time Nathaniel learned, taught himself, to write his unique tales and sketches.

=__Writing Short Stories and Novels and Marraige __ = When Nathaniel first started having his works published he would have them published anonymously. Some of his short stories came slowly upon the critics as favorites and hits and later became American Classics. After writing some of his works Nathaniel met Sophia Peabody, who was his neighbor in Salem, and in 1842 they were married and went to live in the Old Manse in Concord, Massachusetts. After getting married Nathaniel spent several years just with his wife quietly, but still remained in contact with some friends such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, whose philosophical wasy he did not take to. After a few years of being married Nathaniel once again went back out into the world in 1846 and became a surveyor until 1848 when he was let go from his duties due to his ties to politics. Being let go later turned out to be not so much of a bad thing because shortly after he was let go he then had time to write his greatest success of all his stories, The Scarlet Letter.

=__Last Years __=  Even though Nathaniel had always been an active man, his health suddenly turned for the worse. Once his condition got bad enough he started refusing to go through medical examinations so it remains a mystery to what caused his death. Nathaniel and Franklin Pierce had went off to visit the New Hampshire Hills, which Nathaniel and Franklin Pierce both enjoyed, but Nathaniel had died the second day in Plymouth, New Hampshire, supposedly in his sleep.