The Scarlet Letter

The Scarlet Letter is an 1850 novel by writer Nathaniel Hawthorne. The work, Hawthorne’s first full-length novel, is a classic of the American Romantic era. More specifically, its treatment of topics like sin, insanity, and the occult make it a work of Dark Romanticism—a movement related to the Gothic genre that includes works by Edgar Allan Poe and Herman Melville. The Scarlet Letter is also a piece of historical fiction; it is set in the early days of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and refers to real historical figures like Governor Richard Bellingham and Reverend John Wilson. This study guide references the 2003 Penguin Classics edition of the work.

Other works by this author include The Blithedale Romance, The Hollow of the Three Hills, The House of the Seven Gables, and My Kinsman Major Molineux.

Plot Summary

In the Introduction, Hawthorne describes how he came to write The Scarlet Letter. While working at the Salem Custom House—a job he found unbearably dull—he claims to have found some old papers about a woman named Hester Prynne, along with an embroidered letter A.