The Scarlet Letter

Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Scarlet Letter was published in 1850; it was one of the first novels to be mass-produced in America, which helped ensure its immediate popularity and ubiquitous presence on contemporary shelves. Its first printing of 2,500 books sold out in ten days. The novel is set in the Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony between the years 1642 and 1649. The married Hester Prynne has had a child from an adulterous affair, and the child’s father is a mystery. For her sin, she is made to wear an embroidered scarlet A on her clothes—for “Adulteress.” She now faces a life of unending shame in the stern and religious Puritan colony, in a part of the world where there are no others to turn to. While the plot is simple, the novel is highly allegorical. It explores themes of sin, guilt, repentance, forgiveness, alienation, and legalism. Characters have symbolic names and appearances, and many aspects of the narrative can be viewed in a symbolist lens. Hawthorne prefaced the novel with “The Custom-House.” Some Salem residents took it as malicious mockery of themselves. In his preface to the second edition, Hawthorne announced that he would reprint the introduction unchanged, insisting that it was written with good-natured humor and no ill will. The novel has been consistently popular since its publication, with it being required reading in many American high schools. D. H. Lawrence called it “a perfect work of American imagination.”

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