Novelist and short-story writer, Hawthorne was a central figure in the American Renaissance. Hawthorne's best-known works include The Scarlet Letter (1850) and The House of the Seven Gables (1851). Writers like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Herman Melville, and Hawthorne looked not only to the Puritan origins of American history, but also to Puritan styles of rhetoric to create a distinctive American literary voice. Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts. His father was a sea captain and descendent of John Hawthorne, one of the judges in the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692. He died when the young Nathaniel was four years old. Hawthorne grew up in seclusion with his widowed mother. He leaned on her for emotional solace and vice versa. This influence Hawthorne carried with him into adulthood. Later he wrote, "I have locked myself in a dungeon and I can't find the key to get out." Hawthorne was educated at the Bowdoin College in Maine. Among his friends were Longfellow and Franklin Pierce, who became the fourteenth president of the United States.

American Literature Research and Analysis Site (July 28, 1998). Students of Florida Gulf Coast University. "Nathaniel Hawthorne: ‘Young Goodman Brown’"

http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~daniel/amlit/goodman/goodman.html, Young Goodman Brown "Site Exploring ‘Young Goodman Brown’ first published in 1835" includes "Allegorical Young Goodman Brown" and "A View of Young Goodman Brown" (student papers)

Bartelby.com, Great Books Online "Nathaniel Hawthorne." Columbia Encyclopedia. 6th ed. Columbia UP: 2001.

Brothers Heuss, Cyber Learning Studios, "About Nathaniel Hawthorne"

http://www.gonzaga.edu/faculty/campbell/enl311/hawthor.htm, "Nathaniel Hawthorne" , Faculty Site: Gonazaga