The House of the Seven Gables is a novel written in 1851 by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne. It is a recognized classic of American literature.

Characters:

• Hepzibah Pyncheon - Hepzibah is an unmarried older woman, a descendant of the Pyncheon who built the house of the title. She is from a high-society class but destitute. At the beginning of the novel, she has opened a cent-shop in the first floor of the house because of the financial ruin of the family.
• Holgrave - a daguerreotypist who boards at the house who, unbeknownst to any of the other characters, is a descendant of the original Matthew Maule. (Who had been hanged as a witch at the instigation of the original Colonel Jaffrey Pyncheon, in order to thereby steal the land upon which the house was built.)
• Phoebe Pyncheon - a young cousin of Hepzibah's, Phoebe has grown up in the country without airs. She shows up, intending to stay a couple of weeks. She immediatedly wins over the Pyncheons and their neighbors with her natural charm and vivaciousness.
• Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon - He is a well-to-do judge and political aspirant who lives on a comfortable estate out of town. In appearance and character he so strongly resembles the "original" Colonel Pyncheon, who built the house, that some people mistake portraits of the ancestor for the descendant. In fact, he is just as vicious and unrelenting as his ancestor in his hunt for a lost land deed, the purported source of new wealth for the desolute Pyncheon clan.
• Clifford Pyncheon - Clifford is Hepzibah's elderly, nearly bed-ridden brother who comes to live in the house after being released from prison, where he was serving a sentence for the alleged murder of his uncle; but as it turns out, he was framed by his own cousin, Jaffrey.
• Uncle Venner - A jovial old man (he is, in fact, even older than Hebzipah) who is the only neighbor to the Pyncheons still in good standings with them.
• Ned Higgins - A young precocious boy who drops by Hebzipah's cent shop every now and then to deplete her supply of gingerbread cookies. (Wikipedia.org)

Download The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne

PDF format, 594KB, 278Pages.

The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the Pennsylvania State University, Electronic Classics Series, Jim Manis, Faculty Editor, Hazleton, PA 18202-1291 is a Portable Document File produced as part of an ongoing student publication project to bring classical works of literature, in English, to free and easy access of those wishing to make use of them.

Cover Design: Jim Manis
Copyright © 2008 The Pennsylvania State University

INTRODUCTORY NOTE
IN SEPTEMBER of the year during the February of which Hawthorne had completed “The Scarlet Letter,” he began “The House of the Seven Gables.” Meanwhile, he had removed from Salem to Lenox, in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, where he occupied with his family a small red wooden house, still standing at the date of this edition, near the Stockbridge Bowl.

“I sha’n’t have the new story ready by November,” he explained to his publisher, on the 1st of October, “for I am never good for anything in the literary way till after the first autumnal frost, which has somewhat such an effect on my imagination that it does on the foliage here about me-multiplying and brightening its hues.” But by vigorous application he was able to complete the new work about the middle of the January following. ...

I
The Old Pyncheon Family
HALFWAY DOWN a by-street of one of our New England towns stands a rusty wooden house, with seven acutely peaked gables, facing towards various points of the compass, and a huge, clustered chimney in the midst.

The street is Pyncheon Street; the house is the old Pyncheon House; and an elm-tree, of wide circumference, rooted before the door, is familiar to every town-born child by the title of the Pyncheon Elm. On my occasional visits to the town aforesaid, I seldom failed to turn down Pyncheon Street, for the sake of passing through the shadow of these two antiquities, —the great elm-tree and the weather-beaten edifice.

The aspect of the venerable mansion has always affected me like a human countenance, bearing the traces not merely of outward storm and sunshine, but expressive also, of the long lapse of mortal life, and accompanying vicissitudes that have passed within. Were these to be worthily recounted, they would form a narrative of no small interest and instruction, and possessing, moreover, a certain remarkable unity, which might almost seem the result of artistic arrangement. ...

Comments (0)

Name

Email

Comment

smaller | bigger

Add Comment