The House of the Seven Gables, written in 1851, was the fourth of the nine novels written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. He began writing it the year that The Scarlet Letter was published, one of the first books to be mass-produced in America. The House of the Seven Gables is the story of a family seemingly cursed by the actions of a cruel, Puritan ancestor. The ancestor, a Colonel Pyncheon, played a key role in getting a man hanged for witchcraft, then built a house on the ground that man once owned. The story revolves around the current Pyncheons, their misfortunes, and their eventual redemption. It is considered a classic of American literature, both a Romantic novel (even described as such...
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