The Scarlet LetterWhen an elderly English scholar discovers his young wife in the pillory, cradling an illegitimate child and wearing a scarlet A for Adulteress, he disguises himself as a doctor and begins a cruel and destructive search for the father of the child. Set in mid-seventeenth-century Boston, thispowerful tale of passion, puritanism, and revenge is one of the foremost classics of American literature. Covering the most recent developments in Hawthorne scholarship, this up-to-date edition contains full and detailed notes. |
Contents
Introduction | vii |
Note on the Text | xliii |
A Chronology of Nathaniel Hawthorne | xliv |
THE SCARLET LETTER | xlvi |
Preface to the Second Edition | 1 |
The CustomHouseIntroductory | 3 |
The PrisonDoor | 47 |
The MarketPlace | 49 |
The Ministers Vigil | 147 |
Another View of Hester | 159 |
Hester and the Physician | 168 |
Hester and Pearl | 175 |
A Forest Walk | 182 |
The Pastor and His Parishioner | 189 |
A Flood of Sunshine | 199 |
The Child at the BrookSide | 206 |
The Recognition | 60 |
The Interview | 70 |
Hester at Her Needle | 78 |
Pearl | 89 |
The Governors Hall | 100 |
The ElfChild and the Minister | 108 |
The Leech | 118 |
The Leech and His Patient | 129 |
The Interior of a Heart | 139 |
The Minister in a Maze | 214 |
The New England Holiday | 226 |
The Procession | 236 |
The Revelation of the Scarlet Letter | 248 |
Conclusion | 258 |
Explanatory Notes | 265 |
294 | |
Common terms and phrases
Ann Hutchinson answered Hester Antinomian Arthur Dimmesdale authority beheld bosom Boston breast BRIAN HARDING brook brought character child church clergyman cried Custom-House dark death Dimmes Dimmesdale's Dost thou England evil eyes face father forest gaze gleam Governor Bellingham guilty hand hast hath Hawthorne Hawthorne's heart Hester Prynne human ignominy imagination Indian infant little Pearl Loco-foco look magistrates Margaret Fuller market-place Massachusetts Massachusetts Bay colony minister minister's Mistress Hibbins moral mother narrator narrator's Nathaniel Nathaniel Hawthorne nature never Old Manse old Roger Chillingworth once passion physician Prynne's Puritan Quaker reader revealed reverence Reverend Roger Chilling romance Salem scaffold scarlet letter scene secret seemed seen shadow shame sketch smile sorrow soul speak spirit stood story strange sunshine Surveyor sympathy tell thee thought tion token town truth Twice-told Tales voice Whig wild William Prynne Wilt thou Winthrop woman words yonder young