The Scarlet Letter
by Nathaniel Hawthorne(1850)
Novelc. 230 pages
“No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.”
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One great work, every day
by Nathaniel Hawthorne(1850)
“No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.”
Nathaniel Hawthorne(1850)
Hester Prynne, condemned to wear a red 'A' for adultery in Puritan Boston, raises her daughter Pearl while the minister who fathered her suffers in silence. Hawthorne wrote this in a burst of inspiration after losing his job at the Custom House, and the novel established American literature's obsession with sin, guilt, and the past that will not stay buried. The prose is deliberately archaic, the symbolism dense, the scaffold scenes unforgettable. Hawthorne was descended from a Salem witch trial judge. He knew about inherited guilt. This novel is his confession.