| Born this day in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, Nathaniel Hawthorne, American writer of novels and short stories, was a master of the allegorical and symbolic tale. His work initiated the most durable tradition in American fiction, that of the symbolic romance that assumes the universality of guilt and explores the complexities and ambiguities of man's choices. His greatest short stories, as well as the novel The Scarlet Letter (1850), are marked by profound psychological and moral insight. |