Miscellanies. Biographical and Other Sketches and Letters

A descendant of the Salem witch-hunter John Hathorne, Nathaniel Hawthorne rose to fame in 1850 with the publication of his novel The Scarlet Letter - an examination of the Puritan culture to which his ancestor belonged. (Hawthorne so despised the deeds of his famous ancestor that he changed the spelling of his surname in order to hide his heritage.) In later years, after gaining fame as a writer, Hawthorne attempted to track down and destroy every extant copy of his first novel, Fanshawe, which had not fared well with critics.