Nathaniel Hawthorne (1805-64) was an American novelist and short story writer. He was born in Salem, Massachusetts, and graduated from Bowdoin College. His first novel,Fanshawe,was published anonymously in 1828, followed by several collections of short stories, includingTwice-Told TalesandMosses from an Old Manse.His later novels includeThe Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Gables, The Blithedale Romance,andThe Marble Faun. Rosemary Mahoney is the author ofThe Early Arrival of Dreams, an account of teaching in China that was aNew York TimesNotable Book in 1990, andWhoredom in Kimmage, a National Book Critics Circle finalist in 1993. She won the Charles E. Horman Prize for Fiction Writing as an undergraduate at Harvard and is also the recipient of a Whiting Writing Award. She lives in New York City.