The House of the Seven Gables

Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short story writer.

The House of the Seven Gables is a Gothic novel written beginning in mid-1850 by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne and published in April 1851 by Ticknor and Fields of Boston. 

The House of the Seven Gables once a "show place" in a small New England town, now presents little evidence of its former grandeur. Wind, sun, storm, and neglect left its sides, shingles, and chimney crumbling. Its gray look is mottled here and there with moss. The lattice fence surrounding it is in ruin. The lawn in front, and what must have been a spacious garden at the rear, long since have missed the care of the cultivator's hand. There in front, to the right of the imposing entrance, is a small door adjacent to a window of what obviously was once a shop.