The Scarlet Letter

The Scarlet Letter: A Romance is a historical novel by the American author Nathaniel Hawthorne, published in 1850. It is set in the Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony between 1642 and 1649, and it tells the story of Hester Prynne, who conceives a daughter with a man she is not married to and then struggles to lead a new life.

The book was one of the first mass-produced books in the United States. It was popular on publication and is treated as a classic of American literature, appearing on lists of the great American novels and inspiring film, television and stage adaptations.

Hawthorne's central device is a contrast between the public and the private self, which is why the letter works as an object rather than only as a symbol: it makes visible something the community has decided to name and the wearer has decided to endure. The community's decision to mark Hester publicly is the book's engine, because it turns a private act into an object that everyone can see and interpret. Because the letter is both a punishment and an identity, the novel can follow a woman who refuses to let either one settle who she is.