Hawthorne was a 19th century novelist and short story writer. He wrote about life in Colonial America. Written in 1851 The House of Seven Gables Begins, "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 house is a gloomy old place haunted with accusations of witchcraft and shady sudden deaths. A delicate romance grows between Phoebe and the mysterious lodger Holgrave, who is writing a history of the Pyncheon family.