From Witchery to Sanctity: The Religious Vicissitudes of the Hawthornes

The remarkable history of the Hawthorne family, from its Puritan background through the skeptical, religiously tinged writings of one of America's greatest novelists, is told with vibrancy and color in From Witchery to Sanctity. The Birds show that religion, far more than other social qualities, shaped the outlook of the family's principles. Their religious thought dramatically affected, and was in turn itself affected by, the times in which they lived. From Puritanism, through Congregationalism and Unitarianism, and finally into Catholicism, the lives of the Hawthornes are woven by the Birds into a fabric that, in good part, tells the story of the founding and growth of the United States itself.