Nathaniel Hawthorn (1804–1864) was an American novelist, dark romantic, and short story writer. «The House of the Seven Gables» is one of Hawthorne’s defi ning works, a vivid depiction of American life and values replete with brilliantly etched characters. The tale of a cursed house with a «mysterious and terrible past» and the generations linked to it, Hawthorne’s chronicle of the Maule and Pyncheon families over two centuries reveals lives «caught in the common fi re of history».