This volume offers the serious student of Nathaniel Hawthorne a comprehensive guide to all available primary and secondary data on his life and works. The encyclopaedia presents, in one alphabetized sequence, approxomately 1500 entries that identify all of Hawthorne’s characters, summarize the plots of his fiction and the substance his essays, and introduce his family members, friends and associates. A chronological listing of the events in Hawthorne’s life documents the personal relationships and richly diverse experiences that were reflected in his numerous stories, reviews, poems, nonfiction pieces, letters and notebooks. Many of these were widely acclaimed; but dozens were overlooked until now; all, are carefully cited in the encyclopaedia. Nine appendixes index Hawthorne’s writings according to genre as well as the important people on his life by their relationship to him, whether personal or professional, casual or official.