ABSTRACT
Probably he appeared in print before that time, but his earliest volume was an anonymous and never avowed romance which was published in Boston in 1832. In his home at Concord, thus happily described, in the midst of a few congenial friends, Hawthorne passed three years; and, "in a spot so sheltered from the turmoil of life's ocean", he says, "three years hasten away with a noiseless flight, as the breezy sunshine chases the cloud-shadows across the depths of a still valley". Now came hints, growing more and more distinct, that the owner of the old house was pining for his native air. Carpenters next appeared, making a tremendous racket among the outbuildings, strewing green grass with pine shavings and chips of chesnut joists, and vexing the whole antiquity of the place with their discordant renovations. Mr. Hawthorne's last work is The House of Seven Gables, a romance of the present day.
