A dark, many-gabled mansion in a small New England village houses the distinguished Pyncheon family, who are haunted by a centuries old curse that casts the shadow of ancestral sin on its last four members. The arrival of Phoebe Pyncheon from the country breathes fresh air and sunshine into the musty, decaying room in their lives. Hawthorne call The House Of the seven Gables a "Romance" drawing on the Gothic tradition of exploiting the supernatural. A powerful exploration of personal and national guilt, Henry James called this work "the closet approach we are likely to have to the Great American Novel.