Young Goodman Brown
About the Story
Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem, MA, in 1804. His family is descended from the earliest settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Hawthorne is related to John Hathorne, who was one of the judges at the 1692 Salem Witch Trials and condemned 25 women to death. Ashamed of his family’s history, Hawthorne added a “w” to his name when he became an author. “Young Goodman Brown” is considered to be one of Hawthorne’s most popular works. As in his other works, Hawthorne seeks to expose Puritan hypocrisy and incorporates the names of two women killed during the Salem Witch Trials into his story: Goody Cloyse and Martha Carrier. “Young Goodman Brown” was first published anonymously in a magazine in 1835 and later in Hawthorne’s 1846 short story collection, Mosses from an Old Manse. Some of Hawthorne’s most notable works include The Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Gables, and the short story “Feathertop.”
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