(1804-1864) US author who wrote about Puritan New England and won fame with The Scarlet Letter 1850, a powerful novel set in Boston 200 years earlier. He wrote three other novels (The House of the Seven Gables 1851, The Blithedale Romance 1852, and The Marble Faun 1860), many volumes of short stories, and ‘Tanglewood Tales’ 1853, classic Greek legends retold for children. His short stories, which include ‘My Kinsman, Major Molineux’ and ‘Young Goodman Brown’, helped to establish the short story as an art form.
Born in Salem, Massachusetts, Hawthorne graduated from Bowdoin College and worked as a customs official. He was the US consul 1853–57 in Liverpool, England, and then lived in Italy until 1860. Hawthorne's fiction is marked by its haunting symbolism and its exploration of guilt, sin, and other complex moral and psychological issues. It had a profound effect on writers of his own time, notably his friend Herman Melville, and continues to influence writers.

1. Borough in New Jersey (USA); zip code 07506.
2. City in California (USA).
3. City in Florida (USA); zip code 32640.
4. Unincorporated community in Florida (USA).
5. Unincorporated community in Nevada (USA).
6. Unincorporated community in New York (USA).