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Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts, a descendant
of Puritan ancestors, including one of the judges of the Salem
witchcraft trials. He graduated from Bowdoin College in Maine,
where he had become friends with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
and later president of the United States Franklin Pierce,
and then returned to Salem to write. Hawthorne's early endeavors
were mostly short stories, but even though he published many
of these tales in magazines and literary annuals, they always
appeared anonymously and did little to advance his literary
career. Only when he published these stories in collections,
as in Twice-Told Tales (1837) and Mosses from
an Old Manse (1846), did Hawthorne become a recognized
literary force. In 1842 he married Sophia Peabody of Salem,
and Hawthorne's primary focus turned to family. His masterpiece,
The Scarlet Letter, appeared in 1850 and became an
international sensation, with critics in Great Britain and
the United States proclaiming him the finest American romance
writer. Other novels by Hawthorne include The House of
Seven Gables (1851), The Blithedale Romance
(1852), and The Marble Faun (1860).
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