Born July 4, 1804, Nathaniel Hathorne was the only son of Captain Nathaniel Hathorne and Elizabeth Clarke Manning Hathorne. (Hawthorne added the “w” to his name after he graduated from college.) Following the death of Captain Hathorne in 1808, Nathaniel, his mother, and his two sisters were forced to move in with Mrs. Hathorne’s relatives, the Mannings. Here Nathaniel Hawthorn grew up in the company of women without a strong male role model; this environment may account for what biographers call his shyness and introverted personality.
This period of Hawthorne’s life was mixed with the joys of reading and the resentment of financial dependence. While he studied at an early age with Joseph E. Worcester, a well-known lexicographer, he was not particularly fond of school. An injury allowed him to stay home for a year when he was nine, and his early “friends” were books by Shakespeare, Spenser, Bunyan, and 18th century novelists.
During this time Mrs. Hathorne moved her family to land owned by the Mannings near Raymond, Maine. Nathaniel’s fondest memories of these days were when “I ran quite wild, and would, I doubt not, have willingly run wild till this time, fishing all day long, or shooting with an old fowling piece.” This idyllic life in the wilderness exerted its charm on the boy’s imagination but ended in 1819 when he returned to Salem to prepare two years for college entrance.
