Nathaniel Hawthorne is closely identified with the Puritan era in his fiction, and notably in his novel The Scarlet Letter. The Puritan era in American history left a rich and complex legacy that continues to this day. The Puritan ethic included a provision regarding hard work as a way of life and as proof of dedication to God that has been seen as one of the primary reasons for American business success, and the term is still used today to refer to the work ethic which infuses manufacturing, business, and other sectors in the American economy. The other arm of Puritanism that had great power was a form of asceticism and prudishness supposedly embodied in the New England idea of "banned in Boston," for instance. The legacy of Puritanism also created a good deal of guilt over sins real and imagined, and the excesses of the Puritans, seen in the Salem witch trials, would become an important literary theme in writers like Nathaniel Hawthorne. Puritanism also involved a good deal of hypocrisy and self-righteousness against which the new American society would rebel.
Nathaniel Hawthorne was a product of a Puritan family and was very familiar with the history of New England and with the nature of the Puritan era. He was born in Salem, Massachusetts in 1804, and his first American ancestor, William Hathorne (as it was then spelled) came to Massachusetts Bay with John Winthrop in 1630. William was a magistrate and ordered the whipping of a Quakeress in Salem. William's son, John, was one of the three judges who presided over the Salem witch trials in 1692. Nathaniel was sensitive to this inheritance and well aware of its ramifications in American history. Hawthorne wrote his first novel in 1828 and then settled down to concentrate on the craft of fiction. He produced numerous tales and collected them in book form. However, while he was receiving praise for his work, he was not getting much money. In 1846 he took a post in th...