One hundred years after inheriting a seven-gabled house with a dark and cursed past, Clifford and Hepzibah are old and nearly destitute. Descendants of the cursed Colonel Pyncheon, they have resorted to taking in boarders and running a struggling cent store to support themselves. When a distant relative, untouched by Colonel Pyncheon's curse, moves into the gabled house and takes over the cent store, her charm and disposition brings success to the shop and the Pyncheons' situation improves. But it soon becomes clear the bad luck surrounding the house is not easily overcome.

The House of the Seven Gables was inspired by the gabled home of Hawthorne's cousin, and his own family's involvement in the Salem Witch Trials. The novel, claimed by Hawthorne to be a romance, has been re-categorized, controversially, several times as gothic horror, fiction, thriller, supernatural, and even fantasy. It has been adapted for the screen several times, and inspired H. P. Lovecraft's work in horror fiction.

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