The Scarlet Letter

by Hawthorne, Nathaniel; Wineapple, Brenda

• ISBN13: 9780451526083
• ISBN10: 0451526082
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-10-02
• Publisher: Signet Classics

Summary

Strikingly modern themes of passion, sin, and guilt pervade the story of Hester Prynne. Believing herself a widow, Hester has an illicit affair with a well-respected member of her Puritan New England community. Though she bears his child, and vilification and punishment from her neighbors as a result, Hester will not reveal the man's name.

Author Biography

Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on July 4, 1804, in Salem, Massachusetts, the son and grandson of proud New England seafarers. He lived in genteel poverty with his widowed mother and two young sisters in a house filled with Puritan ideals and family pride in a prosperous past. His boyhood was, in most respects, pleasant and normal. In 1825 he was graduated from Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, and he returned to Salem determined to become a writer of short stories. For the next twelve years he was plagued with unhappiness and self-doubts as he struggled to master his craft. He finally secured some small measure of success with the publication of his Twice-Told Tales (1837). His marriage to Sophia Peabody in 1842 was a happy one. The Scarlet Letter (1850), which brought him immediate recognition, was followed by The House of the Seven Gables (1851). After serving four years as the American Consul in Liverpool, England, he traveled in Italy; he returned home to Massachusetts in 1860. Depressed, weary of writing, and failing in health, he died on May 19, 1864, at Plymouth, New Hampshire.
Brenda Wineapple authored Sister Brother: Gertrude and Leo Stein and Genet: A Biography of Janet Flanner and is currently at work on a biography of Nathaniel Hawthorne.  She is Washington Irving Professor of Modern Literary and Historical Studies at Union College and has appeared on C-Span’s American Writers series.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. vii
Preface to the Second Edition of The Scarlet Letter	p. xvi
The Custom House, Introductory Sketch	p. 1
The Prison Door	p. 41
The Market Place	p. 43
The Recognition	p. 53
The Interview	p. 62
Hester at Her Needle	p. 69
Pearl	p. 79
The Governor's Hall	p. 89
The Elf-Child and the Minister	p. 96
The Leech	p. 105
The Leech and His Patient	p. 115
The Int%rior of a Heart	p. 125
The Minister's Vigil	p. 132
Another View of Hester	p. 143
Hester and the Physician	p. 151
Hester and Pearl	p. 158
A Forest Walk	p. 165
The Pastor and His Parishioner	p. 172
A Flood of Sunshine	p. 182
The Child at the Brookside	p. 188
The Minister in a Maze	p. 195
The New England Holiday	p. 206
The Procession	p. 215
The Revelation of the Scarlet Letter	p. 226
Conclusion	p. 235
Endicott and the Red Cross	p. 241
Selected Bibliography	p. 249
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