The Life of the Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne - by Dale Salwak (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

The first major Hawthorne biography to be published in two decades, featuring original scholarship on both unpublished and published sources

The Life of the Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne presents a rich and nuanced portrait of one of America's greatest writers, exploring the thoughts and ideas of a man whose profound insights about the human condition continue to resonate in the modern day. Accessible to those with little knowledge of Hawthorne, this unique volume uses a new biographical approach based on exhaustive primary research that provides readers with a better understanding of the artist and his work.

Author Dale Salwak challenges the presumption that Hawthorne was a reclusive, eccentric, and alienated man whose relevance to modern times is diminishing. Drawing from his forty-five years' experience reading, studying, and teaching Hawthorne, the author reveals a more approachable Hawthorne. In-depth and reflective chapters explore topics such as the circumstances that led Hawthorne to become a writer, the influence of Sophia Hawthorne on her husband's work, the theory of the unfulfilled homoerotic relationship between Hawthorne and Herman Melville, and more.

• Offers a fresh reading of Hawthorne's life and work from birth to death
• Provides new perspectives on Hawthorne and stories surrounding his work
• Draws from a wide variety of sources, including novels, tales, children's books, notebooks, and personal letters to and from Hawthorne
• Suggests new strategies for teaching Hawthorne to today's students
• Includes a detailed index and comprehensive introductory and concluding chapters

Highlighting Hawthorne's special contributions to American literature, The Life of the Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne is essential reading for scholars, lecturers, and college students taking courses including Literary History, American Literature, and History of the Novel as well as anyone interested in biography, literature, and creativity.

"Dale Salwak has assimilated vast amounts of scholarship on Hawthorne and his circle, and he's crafted a highly readable and brilliant biography. The lines in Hawthorne's astonishing life have never been more clearly drawn. A wonderful book, highly recommend."
--Jay Parini, author of Robert Frost: A Life and Borges and Me

From the Back Cover

One of America's greatest writers, Nathaniel Hawthorne explored the most fundamental aspects of the human condition. His profound insights into themes such as good and evil, guilt and penitence, sin and sexuality, religious hypocrisy, and national identity continue to resonate in the present day. The Life of the Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne paints a detailed portrait of the man and artist, providing rich insights into Hawthorne's life, writings, thoughts, and ideas.

Drawing from his nearly five decades of experience reading, studying, and teaching Hawthorne, author Dale Salwak challenges presumptions of Hawthorne as reclusive, eccentric, and ultimately unknowable. Exhaustive primary research into published and unpublished notebooks, tales, and personal letters reveals a more approachable Hawthorne, a man with a great capacity for warmth and enthusiasm. Salwak offers new perspectives on topics such as the influence of Sophia Hawthorne on her husband's work, theories about a homoerotic relationship between Hawthorne and Herman Melville, Hawthorne's relevance in contemporary literary education, and more.

The first major Hawthorne biography to be published in more than twenty years, The Life of the Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne is essential reading for scholars, teachers, college students, and general readers with interest in the life and work of this canonical nineteenth-century writer.

About the Author

DALE SALWAK is Professor of English and American Literature at Citrus College, California. He is the author of 28 books including Living with a Writer, Teaching Life: Letters from a Life in Literature, Writers and Their Mothers, and studies of Kingsley Amis, John Braine, Philip Larkin, Barbara Pym, and Carl Sandburg, amongst others. He is a frequent contributor to the (London) Times Higher Education magazine and the Times Educational Supplement.