Nathaniel Hawthorne (Bloom's Classic Critical Views)

A key figure in the development of American literature, nineteenth-century novelist and short-story writer Nathaniel Hawthorne is perhaps best known for his novels The Scarlet Letter, The Marble Faun, and The House of the Seven Gables. Also among his major achievements are numerous stories including "My Kinsman, Major Molineux," "Young Goodman Brown," and "The Minister's Black Veil." Hawthorne, perhaps more so than any other writer of his time, continued in the English literary tradition while taking as his subject the early history of New England. His fiction treated a variety of themes and often explored the hidden motivations of his characters