The Scarlet Letter

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s universal classic, forged from America’s Puritan heritage: a masterful exploration of humanity’s unending struggle with sin, guilt, and pride

“[Nathaniel Hawthorne] recaptured, for his New England, the essence of Greek tragedy.”—Malcolm Cowley

Hailed by Henry James as “the finest piece of imaginative writing yet put forth in the country,” Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter reaches to our nation’s historical and moral roots for the material of great tragedy. Set in an early New England colony, the novel shows the terrible impact a single, passionate act has on the lives of three members of the community: the defiant Hester Prynne; the fiery, tortured Reverend Dimmesdale; and the obsessed, vengeful Chillingworth.