The Scarlet Letter (The Penguin English Library) - Softcover

Hawthorne, Nathaniel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 014062080X ISBN 13: 9780140620801

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 1994

Synopsis

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.

About this title

Product Description:

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.

Review:

"[Nathaniel Hawthorne] recaptured, for his New England, the essence of Greek tragedy." --Malcolm Cowley

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 014062080X
• ISBN 13: 9780140620801
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240