What's your favorite Nathaniel Hawthorne novel?

Regular readers of this blog will know that my favorite all-time writer is H.P. Lovecraft, and one of the biggest influences on Lovecraft’s writings was the Nathaniel Hawthorne novel, “The House of the Seven Gables.”

A month or so ago, I ran across an old paperback edition of this classic Gothic novel at the Evergreen-Conecuh County Public Library, and I just finished reading it the other day. Published in 1851, this novel is about several generations of a New England family who live in a large gabled mansion. Set in the mid-1800s, the story contains a number of supernatural elements, including more than a few references to a family curse, mysterious deaths, ghosts and witchcraft.

H.P. Lovecraft, who died in 1937, is best known for his horror, fantasy and science fiction stories, and he admits to being heavily influenced by Hawthorne’s “Seven Gables” novel. In Lovecraft’s famous long essay, “Supernatural Horror in Literature,” in which he surveyed the field of horror fiction, he said that “The House of the Seven Gables” was “New England’s greatest contribution to weird literature.”

In his essay, Lovecraft described how Hawthorne artfully used the setting of the old mansion in his novel, and I was interested to learn that the fictional house was actually based on a real house. In fact, this old house still stands and you can visit it today. Constructed in 1668, the House of the Seven Gables, which is also known as the Turner House or the Turner-Ingersoll Mansion, is located in Salem, Mass. It currently serves as a museum, but it was once the home of Hawthorne’s cousin, Susannah Ingersoll. Hawthorne was born in a small house a few blocks away from “The House of the Seven Gables,” which is currently listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.

I’d never read any of Hawthorne’s novels prior to “The House of the Seven Gables,” so I didn’t fully appreciate the supernatural aspect of this famous novel before reading it. After having read it, I can now see how the novel was very similar a number of Lovecraft’s stories. While reading it, I couldn’t help but be reminded of such classic Lovecraft tales as “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward,” “The Picture in the House” and “The Shunned House.”

Hawthorne is probably best known for his 1850 novel, “The Scarlet Letter,” and “The House of the Seven Gables” was a follow up to that highly successful novel. In all, Hawthorne wrote seven complete novels and one unfinished novel. In order of publication they include the following titles:

- Fanshawe (1828)

- The Scarlet Letter (1850)

- The House of the Seven Gables (1851)

- The Blithedale Romance (1852)

- The Marble Faun (1860)

- The Dolliver Romance (1863)

- Septimius Felton (1872)

- Doctor Grimshawe’s Secret (unfinished, 1882)

In the end, how many of you have read “The House of the Seven Gables”? What did you think about it? Did you like it or dislike it? Why? Which of Hawthorne’s novels is your personal favorite? Why? Let us know in the comments section below.