Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist, a dark romantic, and short story writer. The House of the Seven Gables is one of Hawthornes defining 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, Hawthornes chronicle of the Maule and Pyncheon families over two centuries reveals lives "caught in the common fire of history".