Introduction Nathaniel Hawthorne lived and wrote during the middle of the nineteenth century, but his style and his subjects were heavily influenced by the Puritan beliefs and lifestyles that had been so important to his ancestors and remained, to some extent, strong influences in his New England home. He was born in Salem, Massachusetts on the fourth of July as the only son among three children. This pressure was increased when he was forced, at the age of four, to move to his mother’s paternal home full of aunts and uncles following the death of his father who had contracted yellow fever during a trip to the Caribbean (Swisher, 1996). Raised mostly by his uncles, Nathaniel spent the next five years in a stern yet creative home, showing a decided preference for creativity and a general avoidance of discipline. “Nathaniel’s passivity and indolence appeared especially unmanly in the presence of Robert Manning’s energetic capabilities, not only to the uncle but to the boy himself. The resulting self-distrust was to be permanently in conflict with Hawthorne’s innate pride” (Erlich, 1984). His family’s Puritan past, which included pilgrims landing on the continent to tame the wilderness and a judge who participated in the famous Salem Witch Trials, would weigh heavily upon him throughout his life and would be strongly reflected within his writings. Although he was strongly encouraged to take up the family trade and become a merchant marine, Hawthorne had decided, by age 17, that he wanted to be a writer. Hawthorne’s education was extensive and provided him with some valuable contacts that would contribute to his later success. His official education started at age 15 at the Samuel H. Archer School with the intention of preparing him for college. He then entered the Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine in 1821 (Swisher, 1996). While he was there, he formed lifelong friendships with future literary giant Henry Wordsworth Longfellow, future president Franklin Pierce and future Navy Commander Horatio Bridge. He spent another 12 years after completing college living in his mother’s house and educating himself in how to be a good writer by studying his Puritan past, nonfiction and fiction works of note (Swisher, 1996). While he always styled himself a writer, he held several small jobs necessary to support himself. These included magazine editor, customs house worker (in a variety of capacities) and as a farmer for a brief period at Brook House, an experimental commune (Swisher, 1996). After he moved to the Lenox countryside to escape angry Salem residents, he met Herman Melville who was to have profound influence on The House of Seven Gables. “The presence of this brooding mariner, poetic soul such as Hawthorne’s father had been, stirred the deepest memories – and doubts – of the older writer. Melville’s talk of the sea, of time, eternity, death, myth, and literature, his metaphysical leaping, struck Hawthorne’s own particular woe. Hawthorne eventually recoiled from Melville’s truth – but not before giving to Moby Dick; or the Whale the bitter duplicity of his literary technique in The House of the Seven Gables” (St. John, 2002: Ch. 4). However, Lenox was not to be the permanent home of the Hawthorne and his family as they eventually purchased their own country seat in Concord, within walking distance of the Ralph Waldo Emersons and Waldon Pond. Hawthorne continued to suppor