The House of the Seven Gables a fixture in Hawthorne’s Salem serves as the ancestral home of the fictional Pyncheon family—whose distinguished legacy is tainted by pious thievery. When country cousin Phoebe arrives at the house she is like a cool breeze refreshing a room that has been sealed for too long. The resulting mixture of dark and light imagery illustrated by Hawthorne’s rich prose makes this romance an important American classic.