Books with title Scarlet Letter

First published in 1850, “The Scarlet Letter” is Nathaniel Hawthorne’s masterpiece and one of the greatest American novels. Its themes of sin, guilt, and redemption, woven through a story of adultery in the early days of the Massachusetts Colony, are revealed with remarkable psychological penetration and understanding of the human heart.Hester Prynne is the adulteress, forced by the Puritan community to wear a scarlet letter A on the breast of her gown. Arthur Dimmesdale, the minister and the secret father of her child, Pearl, struggles with the agony of conscience and his own weakness. Roger Chillingworth, Hester’s husband, revenges himself on Dimmesdale by calculating assaults on the frail mental state of the conscience-stricken cleric. The result is an American tragedy of stark power and emotional depth that has mesmerized critics and readers for nearly a century and a half.The finest piece of imaginative writing yet put forth in the country. —Henry James[Nathaniel Hawthorne] recaptured, for his New England, the essence of Greek tragedy. —Malcolm CowleyThere could be no more perfect work of the American imagination than “The Scarlet Letter”. —D. H. LawrenceThe style of Hawthorne is purity itself. His tone is singularly effective — wild, plaintive, thoughtful, and in full accordance with his themes... We look upon him as one of the few men of indisputable genius to whom our country has as yet given birth. —Edgar Allan Poe

Packaged in handsome and affordable trade editions, Clydesdale Classics is a new series of essential works made available again. The series features literary phenomena with influence and themes so great that, after their publication, they changed literature forever. From the musings of literary geniuses like Mark Twain in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to the striking personal narrative of Harriet Jacobs in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, this new series is a comprehensive collection of our history through the words of the exceptional few.The magnum opus of revered writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter is arguably one of the greatest novels written during the nineteenth century. It is the story of Hester Prynne—a young woman accused of, tried for, and publicly punished for adultery. Set during the seventeenth century in Boston, she receives harsh ridicule from the radical Puritan community for her actions. From the affair she conceives a child, and struggles to rebuild her life and her reputation. Throughout the book Hawthorne explores controversial themes of sexuality, romance, guilt, shame, infidelity—all of which are still pertinent topics more than 150 years after its initial publication.The Scarlet Letter is a timeless story of morality, legality, struggle, and shame in a world that was so intolerant of the very things that make us human.

Packaged in handsome and affordable trade editions, Clydesdale Classics is a new series of essential works made available again. The series features literary phenomena with influence and themes so great that, after their publication, they changed literature forever. From the musings of literary geniuses like Mark Twain in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to the striking personal narrative of Harriet Jacobs in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, this new series is a comprehensive collection of our history through the words of the exceptional few.The magnum opus of revered writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter is arguably one of the greatest novels written during the nineteenth century. It is the story of Hester Prynne—a young woman accused of, tried for, and publicly punished for adultery. Set during the seventeenth century in Boston, she receives harsh ridicule from the radical Puritan community for her actions. From the affair she conceives a child, and struggles to rebuild her life and her reputation. Throughout the book Hawthorne explores controversial themes of sexuality, romance, guilt, shame, infidelity—all of which are still pertinent topics more than 150 years after its initial publication.The Scarlet Letter is a timeless story of morality, legality, struggle, and shame in a world that was so intolerant of the very things that make us human.

Packaged in handsome and affordable trade editions, Clydesdale Classics is a new series of essential works made available again. The series features literary phenomena with influence and themes so great that, after their publication, they changed literature forever. From the musings of literary geniuses like Mark Twain in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to the striking personal narrative of Harriet Jacobs in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, this new series is a comprehensive collection of our history through the words of the exceptional few.The magnum opus of revered writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter is arguably one of the greatest novels written during the nineteenth century. It is the story of Hester Prynne—a young woman accused of, tried for, and publicly punished for adultery. Set during the seventeenth century in Boston, she receives harsh ridicule from the radical Puritan community for her actions. From the affair she conceives a child, and struggles to rebuild her life and her reputation. Throughout the book Hawthorne explores controversial themes of sexuality, romance, guilt, shame, infidelity—all of which are still pertinent topics more than 150 years after its initial publication.The Scarlet Letter is a timeless story of morality, legality, struggle, and shame in a world that was so intolerant of the very things that make us human.

An "A" for "adultery" marks Hester Prynne as an outcast from the society of colonial Boston. Although forced by the puritanical town fathers to wear a bright red badge of shame, Hester steadfastly resists their efforts to discover the identity of her baby's father. The return of her long-absent spouse brings new pressure on the young mother, as the aggrieved husband undertakes a long-term plot to reveal Hester's partner in adultery and force him to share her disgrace. Masterful in its symbolism and compelling in its character studies, Nathaniel Hawthorne's tale of punishment and reconciliation examines the concepts of sin, guilt, and pride. The Scarlet Letter was published to immediate acclaim in 1850. Its timeless exploration of moral and spiritual issues, along with its philosophical and psychological insights, keep it ever relevant for students of American literature and lovers of fiction. A selection of the Common Core State Standards Initiative.

Like all of Hawthorne's novels, "The Scarlet Letter" has but a slender plot and but few characters with an influence on the development of the story. Its great dramatic force depends entirely on the mental states of the actors and their relations to one another, —relations of conscience, — relations between wronged and wrongers. Its great burden is the weight of unacknowledged sin as seen in the remorse and cowardice and suffering of the Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale. Contrasted with his concealed agony is the constant confession, conveyed by the letter, which is forced upon Hester, and has a double effect, — a healthful one, working beneficently, and making her helpful and benevolent, tolerant and thoughtful ; and an unhealthful one, which by the great emphasis placed on her transgression, the keeping her forever under its ban and isolating her from her fellows, prepares her to break away from the long repression and lapse again into sin when she plans her flight. Roger Chillingworth is an embodiment of subtle and refined revenge. The most striking situation is perhaps "The Minister's Vigil," in chapter xii. The book, though corresponding in its tone and burden to some of the shorter stories, had a more startling and dramatic character, and a strangeness, which at once took hold of a larger public than any of those had attracted. Though imperfectly comprehended, and even misunderstood in some quarters, it was seen to have a new and unique quality; and Hawthorne's reputation became national.

This tragic novel of sin and redemption is Hawthorne's masterpiece of American fiction.An ardent young woman, her cowardly lover, and her aging vengeful husband—these are the central characters in this stark drama of the conflict between passion and convention in the harsh world of seventeenth-century Boston. Tremendously moving and rich in psychological insight, this dramatic depiction of the struggle between mind and heart illuminates Hawthorne's concern with our Puritan past and its influence on American life.With an Introduction by Brenda Wineappleand an Afterword by Regina BarrecaThis edition includes an early Hawthorne story that contains the germ of The Scarlet Letter.

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.With The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne became the first American novelist to forge from our Puritan heritage a universal classic, a masterful exploration of humanity's unending struggle with sin, guilt and pride.