Lost Chapters
Nathaniel Hawthorne: Cobalt Character
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804 to 1864) was an American novelist born in Salem, Massachusetts. He wrote The Scarlet Letter (1850) and The House of the Seven Gables (1851), the first of them written after he lost his job at the Salem Custom House.
- Cost
- 4 crystals
- Type
- Character · Thinker
- Power / Health
- 2 / 5
- Color
- Cobalt (Thinkers & Dreamers)
- Rarity
- Uncommon
- Set
- Liberty & Lightning (Set 1)
- Keywords
- Guard
When this survives damage, draw a card (once per turn).
Moral examiner whose scarlet letters and tangled puritan histories exposed America's complicated relationship with sin.
The real history
Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on July 4, 1804, in Salem, Massachusetts, in a small house three blocks from the town's Custom House. He graduated from Bowdoin College in 1825 in the same class as the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Franklin Pierce, another Bowdoin graduate, became his friend and later president of the United States.
Hawthorne struggled to earn a living by writing alone. His collection Twice-Told Tales appeared in 1837 and brought him fame, and Longfellow praised it in print. He held a job at the Boston Custom House in 1839 and spent time at the Brook Farm cooperative in 1841. He married the illustrator Sophia Peabody and settled in Concord, Massachusetts, near Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.
In 1846 friends in the Democratic Party helped him win the post of Surveyor at the Salem Custom House. When the Whigs took control of the government, he lost the job after a painful and prolonged fight. He turned that anger and disappointment into his first great novel, The Scarlet Letter, published in 1850, and the book's introduction describes the Salem Custom House.
The House of the Seven Gables followed in 1851, then The Blithedale Romance in 1852. When Pierce ran for president, Hawthorne wrote his campaign biography, and in 1853 Pierce appointed him U.S. consul in Liverpool, England, a post he held until 1857. His last novel, The Marble Faun, appeared in 1860.
Hawthorne died on May 19, 1864, at age 59, in Plymouth, New Hampshire.
Sources
- Nathaniel Hawthorne, Salem Maritime National Historical Park, National Park Service
- Nathaniel Hawthorne, Academy of American Poets (Poets.org)
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Nathaniel Hawthorne, National Park Service
How the card plays
Nathaniel Hawthorne costs 4 crystals and is a 2/5 Cobalt Thinker. He has Guard, and when he survives damage you draw a card (once per turn). That makes him a blocker that pays you back for taking hits.
Put him in front of your smaller writers and let the opponent decide whether to attack into five health. A single block can draw you a card, so the best defense is to keep him alive. Red, White, & Blue Red, White, & Blue gives him +0/+1, making him a 2/6. Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. gives your other characters +0/+2, and you can grow Hawthorne to 2/7. Writers Convention Writers Convention gives Thinkers +2/+2 and draws you a card each turn you control a Thinker, so Hawthorne becomes a 4/7 wall that draws.
- Playable in decks led by Martin Luther King Jr., Neil Armstrong, and by any Traveler Leader whose colors include Cobalt.
- In the Dr. King starter deck (1 copy). Deck code:
LC2-BAABAQICAQMBBAEFAQYBBwEIAQkCCgILAQwBDQIOAg8BEAIRARICEwIUAhUBFgEXARgBGQEaARsBHAEdAR4B3v4 - In the Armstrong starter deck (1 copy). Deck code:
LC2-AQABAQECAQMBBAEFAQYBBwEIAgkCCgILAQwBDQIOAQ8BEAERARICEwIUARUBFgEXARgBGQEaARsBHAIdAR4BfQK1eQ - A deck holds up to 3 copies of this card.
Questions about Nathaniel Hawthorne
What is The Scarlet Letter about?
It is a novel published in 1850 and set in Puritan New England. Its introduction describes the Salem Custom House where Hawthorne himself worked as Surveyor from 1846.
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