Nathaniel Hawthorne is easily one of America's most famous novelists, with works like The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables standard fare for American classrooms.

While it was not beloved in its time, The Blithedale Romance is one of Hawthorne's best know romance novels today, and the one that the renowned Henry James called "the lightest, the brightest, the liveliest" of "unhumorous fictions."