The Scarlet Letter

Written by Nathaniel Hawthorne

A woman bears a scarlet letter, concealing secrets that could unravel lives in Puritan Boston.

3.4 Goodreads · 942,891 ratings

272 pages· 63,604 words· HL1420L

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Bookroo's summary

In 17th-century Boston, Hester Prynne stands on a scaffold, marked by a scarlet letter and holding her child. Her secrets could destroy lives: the identity of her child's father and her absent husband. As tensions rise, will Hester reveal the truth, or will vengeance and hidden sins dictate their fates? The struggle between redemption and retribution unfolds, leaving Hester, her lover, and her husband at the mercy of divine and dark forces. Can love and truth prevail in a world governed by strict moral codes?

From the publisher

At once retrospective and radically new, The Scarlet Letter portrays seventeenth-century Puritan New England, a time period irreversibly encoded in the American identity. Hawthorne built one of the most incisive and devastating human dramas ever written out of a community and its outcasts: Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale, one emblazoned with sin and the other distraught with hidden guilt; Pearl, a child born into ostracism; and Roger Chillingworth, driven to vengeance by hatred. Though these characters face a set of specifically troubling circumstances, their words and actions point to moral truths inherent in human affairs, independent of time and place.

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