The House of the Seven Gables
Complete textThe Pyncheon family's old house holds the weight of a disputed inheritance and an enduring story of wrongdoing. Its current inhabitants struggle with diminished circumstances, while the arrival of a younger relative brings daily energy into rooms dominated by memory and family pride.
Continue readingAbout The House of the Seven Gables
The building serves as both a lived domestic space and a store of interpretations about the past. Shops, portraits and inherited objects connect material need with the wish to preserve standing. Characters differ in how readily they accept ancestral accounts, making family history something actively used rather than merely remembered.
Reading focus
Examine how household objects and inherited stories shape the choices available to the present Pyncheon family.
This reading edition contains 105,720 words in 23 original sections. Read the text online with adjustable type and three colour themes, or keep a printable PDF.
Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne. Language: English. Reading edition: 28 October 2026.
Opening excerpt
In September of the year during the February of which Hawthorne had completed “The Scarlet Letter,” he began “The House of the Seven Gables.” Meanwhile, he had removed from Salem to Lenox, in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, where he occupied with his family a small red wooden house, still standing at the date of this edition, near the Stockbridge Bowl.
Contents
All sections- INTRODUCTORY NOTE THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES.8 min
- PREFACE.5 min
- I. The Old Pyncheon Family39 min
- II. The Little Shop-Window19 min
- III. The First Customer22 min
- IV. A Day Behind the Counter22 min
- V. May and November24 min
- VI. Maule’s Well17 min
- VII. The Guest26 min
- VIII. The Pyncheon of To-day26 min
- IX. Clifford and Phœbe19 min
- X. The Pyncheon Garden21 min
- XI. The Arched Window21 min
- XII. The Daguerreotypist22 min
- XIII. Alice Pyncheon36 min
- XIV. Phœbe’s Good-Bye18 min
- XV. The Scowl and Smile25 min
- XVI. Clifford’s Chamber19 min
- XVII. The Flight of Two Owls22 min
- XVIII. Governor Pyncheon25 min
- XIX. Alice’s Posies25 min
- XX. The Flower of Eden14 min
- XXI. The Departure17 min
Reading & download help
Is this the complete The House of the Seven Gables?
This edition contains the complete English literary text, with 23 sections and 105,720 words. This reading edition preserves the checked English text and its section order. No study notes have been added.
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