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The Scarlet Letter (AmazonClassics Edition) Kindle Edition
The red letter A on her dress marks young mother Hester Prynne among her Puritan neighbors, who demand to know who fathered her child. Rumors swirl, but the shunned and shamed Hester keeps her secret—and his—for years, until a guilt-ridden confession reveals the truth, with unexpected consequences.
Set in seventeenth-century Massachusetts, Hawthorne’s masterwork was originally subtitled “a romance,” though its themes include the limits of law, the power of religion, and the nature of sin. Equal parts tragic love story and social commentary, The Scarlet Letter brings to life the undying human need to keep secrets.
Revised edition: Previously published as The Scarlet Letter, this edition of The Scarlet Letter (AmazonClassics Edition) includes editorial revisions.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherAmazonClassics
- Publication dateMay 2, 2017
- File size1844 KB
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Considered Nathaniel Hawthorne’s greatest work, The Scarlet Letter was written in 1850. This riveting novel, set in a Puritan settlement in seventeenth-century Massachusetts, offers a striking symmetry of themes and deep psychological insights. Hester Prynne, the scorned young woman at the center of the book, is one of the most enduring heroines of American literature.
About the Author
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) was an American novelist and short-story writer known for his symbolic, psychological works The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables. Hawthorne grew up in Salem, Massachusetts, a town with deep Puritan roots that are reflected in his writings. Hawthorne, considered a Dark Romantic, focused much of his fiction on the innate evil and sin of humanity.
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Product details
- ASIN : B06ZYD5RMB
- Publisher : AmazonClassics (May 2, 2017)
- Publication date : May 2, 2017
- Language : English
- File size : 1844 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 124 pages
- Page numbers source ISBN : B09KN9YSXK
- Best Sellers Rank: #6,993 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #14 in Literary Fiction (Kindle Store)
- #14 in Classic Literary Fiction
- #148 in Classic Literature & Fiction
- Customer Reviews:
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About the authors
Born on the fourth of July in 1804, Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote the stories that lie at the heart of the American Romantic movement. His portraits of colonial life reflect his Puritan heritage and offer fascinating profiles of individuals who strive for freedom from social conventions.
Photo by Mathew Brady [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
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It is over 200 years since Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem Massachusetts, his great great grandfather officiated at the Salem Witch Trials. He was both disturbed and intrigued by his ancestry. One day when working at The Custom House in Salem to make ends meet as a struggling young author, he discovered in one of the upstairs rooms some dusty old boxes, on opening them he found them to contain relics from the past, long since forgotten. Yellowing documents and an intriguing piece of embroidery, a scrap of faded and torn material with the letter A embroidered on it. He picked it up, and while wondering what it was, he held it up to his chest, and at that moment he claims to have felt a burning sensation which caused him to drop the piece of cloth. It gave him inspiration for this story along with documents he found about a woman called Hester Prynne.
The scene he sets so vividly is somewhere around 350 years ago 150 years before he was born. In a time when behavior to which we can hardly be bothered to raise an eyebrow was in that day considered a punishable sin. A disgrace for life. Branded by having to wear a scarlet letter on the chest for all to see.
It is a feminist novel, (Nathaniel Hawthorne supported women's rights). Briefly, the protagonist Hester Prynne has a child from an adulterous relationship and refuses to name the father. Her husband a physician much older than she has never been a "proper" husband to her so she had looked elsewhere for love. The husband vows to find the father of the child, and in exchange for her freedom makes Hester swear she will never disclose who her husband is. Her husband being a physician quickly deduces who the father is from the way he is wasting away under his burden of guilt. He sets about a long period of torment of the young man of which Hester is aware but can say nothing because of her promise. Finally she has had enough and decides to come clean, shaming the devil, (her husband) and redeeming the young man. I do not want to spoil anything by divulging the name of the father of the child in case you do not know.
This is such a simple and brief account it would make Nathaniel wince to read it. There is so much more to the story. It states in the blurb that it is a psychological novel before there was a science called psychology. The way the characters in the story interact with each other, the symbolism, the different values of the day from Nathaniel's day, and then again to this day. The religious aspect in Puritan times, the emotional ups and downs as you empathize with first one and then another of the characters. It is a wonderful story and well deserving of its position as one of America's great classics.
While I read and taught The Scarlet Letter before, I never had the appreciation for it as I did in this reading. I was captivated by the story, but the language and style of its writing was preeminent for me. Hawthorne crafts a beautifully written story that tells the familiar tale of Hester Prynne's public shame and Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale's private tormented guilt after an adulterous affair set in the backdrop of Puritan Boston. The story is simple, as Hester faces a judgmental crowd in the town, and Dimmesdale suffers from a burning conscience as he does not admit to his sin. One man, Roger Chillingworth--Hester's husband--knows the secret and is bent on revenge against them both.
While The Scarlet Letter is often used to criticize and demonize the Puritan era, it rather shows the importance of what the consequences of sin lead to within our hearts. The public consequences are temporary, but the private consequences are far longer reaching as the "Hound of Heaven" chases after us to confess and repent. While Hawthorne does not condemn adultery as a sin, we see the destruction causes by infidelity with the Prynne family. Hester Prynne is indeed a model of feminine strength and virtue in accepting responsibility and guilt, but she also provides us a picture of the results of our sin and the need for redemption in a Savior.
The book begins with this excellent line, showing the coldness of the scene and the tone of the entire novel:
A throng of bearded men, in sad-colored garments and gray, steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods, and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes.
In our first picture of Hester, Hawthorne contrasts the ugliness of sin with the beauty of the woman:
On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter A. It was so artistically done, and with so much fertility and gorgeous luxuriance of fancy, that it had all the effect of a last and fitting decoration to the apparel which she wore; and which was of a splendor in accordance with the taste of the age, but greatly beyond what was allowed by the sumptuary regulations of the colony.
If you are looking to read novels that you should have read in high school but didn't, I heartily recommend starting with this one.