The House of the Seven Gables

Read Time:8 Minute, 19 Second

The House of Seven Gables (1922) by Nathaniel Hawthorne ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I read The House of the Seven Gables. This book was originally published in 1851, but my copy is from 1922. It’s an awesome school study edition with pictures of the house that was the inspiration for the house in the book.

There are even study notes written by the original owner in it! He wrote days of the week and dates that they would be studying parts of the book. He even wrote simplified definitions of some words that either they were studying or that he didn’t know.

The original owner was Isaac P. Honnold, who was a junior in high school at the time. He wrote K.H.S. in the book, which I am thinking are the initials of the high school that he went to, Kansas High School in Illinois. This school was built in 1899, and the building was used for grade and high school until 1936 when a new school was built. The building now houses grade school only. (1)

I think Isaac wrote ’28 because that would be the year that he would be graduating. The dates – March 8th, 1927 to April 22nd, 1927 – are when the class started the book study and when they finished it up. Notice the heart in the top right corner. Above it says I.P.H. (Isaac’s initials) And the heart says “me” in it with a plus underneath and another heart with a question mark in it. Oh how I wish the name was in that second heart! 💓

My internet sleuthing came up with my conclusion that Isaac P. Honnold was Isaac Preston Honnold, who was born October 1910 and died January 31st 1934 (2). I think the likeliness is extreme that this is the same Isaac P. Honnold, because everything lines up. He would have been 16 going on 17 in 1927 (the same age as a junior would be) and he was born in Kansas, Illinois which explains the K. H. S. (Kansas High School). He also would have been class of ’28.

Unfortunately, Isaac was just 23 when he died. There is no cause of death in the death notice, and I can’t find an obituary. He was attending the University of Illinois at the time. Fortunately, the yearbooks from this university (The Illio) were digitized and are online to see, so we get a picture of him! He was going for mechanical engineering. (3) He had attended the United States Naval Academy, and according to the Annual Register of the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD, he resigned Sept. 13, 1930. (4) I could not find an entry with his picture in the University of Missouri yearbook, because the year he would have attended did not publish Freshman or Sophomore photos. This is his photo from the Illio, 1934, where he was a senior that year. We are fortunate that they took pictures earlier in the school year, or we would not have gotten one at all.

Well, let’s get to the content of the book.

I really enjoyed The House of the Seven Gables. It was not at all what I was expecting, though I’m not exactly sure at this point what I was expecting. A ghost story? Maybe, though in a way, you could say that it is. Anyway, I’d heard hardly anything about it. I’d always associated the title with my dad because he had told me that it had been one of the books he most enjoyed reading, and he’s read a LOT of books. He read it a long time ago, so I asked him what he liked about the book and how well he remembered it. He said:

“It was a long time ago, but I remember a curse on Colonel Pyncheon, and it followed the family. I was about 21. I read it on a flight to and back from LA. I remember something about the Colonel’s portrait and the way the story revolved around it. I remember I couldn’t put it down. I might have to go read it again.”

I was amazed at his memory, but I guess I shouldn’t have been. He has the memory of an elephant!

Before I go through the details of the book, I want to stop and mention that this book has serious Dark Shadows vibes, with the house and the reclusiveness of Hepzibah and the strong overshadow of family history surrounding it. I really enjoyed this book, and if you want to read it, please do. It’s beautifully written and by the end you really are sorry to say goodbye to Hepzibah. I dragged out the finishing of the book because of this. Let’s go on.

The House of the Seven Gables does, indeed, follow the Pyncheon family. Back around 1700, a man named Maule owned a huge area of land, and Colonel Pyncheon wanted it for his own. Being a powerful man, Pyncheon arranged it so that Maule was accused of witchcraft and subsequently hanged for it —- not before Maule put a curse on Pyncheon. “God will give him blood to drink.” This curse seems to have trickled down throughout the years and through the generations.

Having now acquired what he wants, Pyncheon immediately builds a house, a house with seven gables, on the site. Not long after this, Colonel Pyncheon mysteriously dies inside the house, and it is attributed to the curse. Rumor has it that there is a plot of land that was also Maule’s that should now be the Pyncheon’s, but the papers could not be located despite desperate searching.

Fast forward 150 years, and we meet Hepzibah, one of the last Pyncheons. She is a kind hearted, yet lonely recluse inside the house with the seven gables. Years of solitude and loneliness has given her a scowl, which by no means reflects her state of mind. This gives the community a bad opinion of her, and they expect her to be a mean old woman, cranky and curmudgeonly. At one point I had a revelation: Poor Hepzibah has Resting Bitch Face!

Another thing that struck me is that the narrator keeps referring to Hepzibah as an old woman, so advanced in age. It would be easy to believe that she was 85 instead of about 60, the age she really is. But it’s true that years of reclusiveness and anti-socialness can age a person considerably.

It seems that her only friend is a young drifter named Holgrave. Though only in his early 20s, he has been impressed with the radical ideas of the progressives that he has met in his travels, which is a bright contrast to Hepzibah’s own ideals. He has been all around the Middle States and has had many jobs, his current one being a daguerreotypist. He is currently renting a room in a far wing of the house where Hepzibah never goes, as she confines herself to a small area only.

Once upon a time, one of the long-gone Pyncheons had set up a shop under one of the gables of the house. This area hasn’t been touched for many, many years, but, finding herself in a position where she has to earn a living for herself, the once Lady Pyncheon decides to reopen the store. This is a huge step for Hepzibah, as she barely interacts with the outside world.

One day, an unexpected car arrives to the house, and onto the scene pops the ray of sunshine that is Phoebe Pyncheon. She is about 17 years old, a cousin of Hepzibah’s. She is young and optimistic, really representing a sunflower over the dead weeds that is the house of the seven gables, so to speak. She is told that she can stay just a few days, but ends up staying indefinitely, for she soon becomes an integral part of the household.

We meet Clifford, brother of Hepzibah, who seems to be an Alzheimers patient who lives in the house with his sister. He has just come home from the penitentiary, as he has been imprisoned for killing a man. Hepzibah believes that Clifford never could be guilty of such a crime, and thinks that he has been framed by Jaffrey Pyncheon, a prominent Judge, and the only other Pyncheon (besides, possibly, his son, who has been overseas and has not been heard from for some time).

There is a lot of beautiful prose in this book, and it is mostly the telling of the story by the narrator. I would say that this is two thirds storytelling and and only one third dialogue. We really get a look into the thoughts and feelings of Hepzibah. We also get to explore the idea that we get to choose our own destiny, and good things don’t always just fall into our laps; we have to change our lives by making conscious decisions, and not just resigning to our ‘fate’.

There is mystery, romance, loneliness, and pure joy in this book, and I hope you will read it and enjoy it as much as I have. With colorful characters such as Uncle Venner and the little boy who loves gingerbread cookies, I think you will!

While the story of The House of the Seven Gables is totally fictional, the house was based on a real house in Salem, which is now a museum. (5)

You can read this book on gutenberg. (6) You can also get it literally anywhere good books are sold. Let me know what you think of it!

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