Sparknotes the House of Seven Gables - Couverture souple

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 novel follows a New England family and their ancestral home. In the book, Hawthorne explores themes of guilt, retribution, and atonement and colors the tale with suggestions of the supernatural and witchcraft. The setting for the book was inspired by a gabled house in Salem belonging to Hawthorne's cousin Susanna Ingersoll and by ancestors of Hawthorne who had played a part in the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. The book was well received upon publication and later had a strong influence on the work of H. P. Lovecraft. The House of the Seven Gables has been adapted several times to film and television.
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Lovers of gothic horror stories would be remiss in passing by Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The House of the Seven Gables, whose titular setting is based upon a real house in Salem. The novel contains traces of Hawthorne’s own family history, of which he felt deep shame and remorse for their part in the Salem Witch Hunt of the late 17th century. A dark and unjust past informs of the plot of this sometimes-ghost story, and Hawthorne masterfully brings about a redemptive ending which is, for a novel as foreboding and sinister as this, quite happy.