The Scarlet Letter
Scarlet Letter, The,romance by Hawthorne, published in 1850. Based on a theme that appears in Endicott and the Red Cross, this somber romance of conscience and the tragic consequences of concealed guilt is set in Puritan Boston during the mid-17th century. An introductory essay describes the author's experiences as an official of the Salem Custom House and his supposed discovery of a scarlet cloth letter and documents relating the story of Hester.
An aged English scholar sends his young wife, Hester Prynne, to establish their home in Boston. When he arrives two years later, he finds Hester in the pillory with her illegitimate child in her arms. She refuses to name her lover and is sentenced to wear a scarlet A, signifying Adulteress, as a token of her sin. The husband conceals his identity, assumes the name Roger Chillingworth, and in the guise of a doctor seeks to discover her paramour. Hester, a woman of strong independent nature, in...
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