the House of Seven Gables

"The House of the Seven Gables" is a classic of American literature published in 1851 by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts, and is a relative of the founders of Puritan Salem, including John Hathorne, who was a judge in the infamous Salem Witch Trials. Hawthorne's legacy is clear in this novel of greed, curses, love, obsession, and murder...all set in one big creepy house. The sins of one generation are visited upon another in the haunted New England mansion until the arrival of a young woman from the country breathes new air into mouldering lives and rooms. Written shortly after "The Scarlet Letter", "The House of the Seven Gables" re-addresses the theme of human guilt in a style remarkable in both its descriptive virtuosity and its truly modern mix of fantasy and realism.