The Scarlet Letter, second edition

by Nathaniel Hawthorne (Author), John Stephen Martin (Author)

• New

  Illustrated
  2004

  $20.39

  Hawthorne's story of the disgraced Hester Prynne (who must wear a scarlet A as the mark of her adultery), of her illegitimate child, Pearl, and of the righteous minister Arthur Dimmesdale continues to resonate with modern readers. Set in mid-seventeenth-century Boston, this powerful tale of passion, Puritanism, and revenge is one of the foremost classics of American literature. This Broadview edition contains a selection of historical documents that include Hawthorne's writings on Puritanism, the historical sources of the story, and contemporary reviews of the novel. New to the second edition are an updated critical introduction and bibliography and, in the appendices, additional writings by Margaret Fuller, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Henry James, and William Dean Howells.

• Used

  Paperback
  2007

  $3.26

  Set in the harsh Puritan community of seventeenth-century Boston, this tale of an adulterous entanglement that results in an illegitimate birth reveals Nathaniel Hawthorne's concerns with the tension between the public and the private selves. Publicly disgraced and ostracized, Hester Prynne draws on her inner strength and certainty of spirit to emerge as the first true heroine of American fiction. Arthur Dimmesdale stands as a classic study of a seld divided; trapped by the rules of society, he suppresses his passion and disavows his lover, Hester, and their daughter, Pearl. As Nina Baym writes in her Introduction, The Scarlet Letter was not written as realistic, historical fiction, but as a romance , a creation of the imagination that discloses the truth of the human heart.

• New

  Paperback
  

  $30.51

  Nathaniel Hawthorne's greatest romance, The Scarlet Letter , is often simplistically seen as a timeless tale of desire, sin, and redemption. This work argues that The Scarlet Letter is a serious historical novel.

• New

  Hardcover
  1992

  $22.93