He was a descendant of Puritan ancestors during the Salem witch trials. His last name was actually "Hathorne", but he later added it with the "w". His father died when he was four years old from yellow fever. Her uncle helped finance her college education at Bowdoin College. He said: “I do not want to be a doctor and live on the illnesses of men, nor a minister live on their sins, nor a lawyer and live on their quarrels. So, I don’t see that there’s anything left for me other than being an author. He wrote his first novel, Fanshawe – published in 1828 anonymously, and unsuccessfully. He later married Sophia Peabody; they moved to Concord, Massachusetts and had three children. Upon his return to Salem, he devoted himself to writing The Scarlet Letter; he worked on the novel with determination. He later also wrote The Blithedale Romance. Returning to Concord, he traveled and lived in France and Italy. He returned to Wayside, just before the start of the Civil War, and published "Chiefly on War Questions." He died on May 19, 1864, in Plymouth, New Hampshire, following severe bouts of dementia. At this time, his work The Dolliver Romance was published. He was buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord.,