Boston, mid-17th century: Hester Prynne, dignified and silent, is led through prison doors to her public shaming by her censorious Puritan neighbors. Holding her illegitimate child to her breast and bearing a bright scarlet letter �A� embroidered on her bodice, Hester must now struggle to create a new life for herself and her child in this harsh and unforgiving community. When her missing spouse reappears and takes up residence in town under an assumed identity, the stage is set for an explosive confrontation between the truly moral and the merely religious. 

Tales of Greek mythology have entertained countless generations of young readers with their accounts of brave heroes and heroines and the marvels and monsters that they encounter. This edition of Greek Myths: A Wonder Book for Girls and Boys features six classic tales written especially for children by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It includes the legends of Pandora and the Box of Troubles, King Midas and the Golden Touch, Perseus and the Medusa, Philemon and Baucis, Bellerophon and Pegasus, and the labors of Hercules, all illustrated magnificently in color by Walter Crane.

One of the most influential novels in American literature, The Scarlet Letter is the story of a Puritan woman who conceives a child through an affair and her subsequent struggle to overcome sin, shame, and social stigma. Edited by Justine S. Murison, the Norton Library edition features the text of the third (1850) edition of the novel, with explanatory endnotes and an introduction that situates the work in its historical and literary contexts.

Part of Alma Classics Evergreen series, The Scarlet Letter is here presented with an extensive section on Hawthorne's life and works. Having been found guilty of adultery, Hester Prynne is forced to wear an embroidered scarlet letter as a punishment for her sin. While her vengeful husband embarks on a quest to discover the identity of her lover, she is left to face the consequences of her infidelity and find a place for herself and her illegitimate child in the hostile environment of seventeenth-century Puritan Boston. Nathaniel Hawthorne's tense narrative astonished readers with its unparalleled psychological depth when it first appeared, and the novel now stands as one of America's literary landmarks.

ABOUT THE SERIES: Alma Evergreens is a series of popular classics. All the titles in the series are provided with an extensive critical apparatus, extra reading material including a section of photographs and notes. The texts are based on the most authoritative edition (or collated from the most authoritative editions or manuscripts) and edited using a fresh, intelligent editorial approach. With an emphasis on the production, editorial and typographical values of a book, Alma Classics aspires to revitalize the whole experience of reading the classics.

This Norton Critical Edition includes: The first edition of the novel, published in 1851 by Ticknor, Reed and Fields. Robert S. Levine's insightful introduction, revised headnotes, expanded explanatory footnotes and note on the text and annotations. A generous selection of carefully chosen primary materials-three of them new to the Second Edition-intended to provide readers with essential backgrounds on the novel's major themes. An extensive selection of critical responses to The House of the Seven Gables from the time of its publication to the present day, including eight new to the Second Edition. A chronology of Nathaniel Hawthorne's life and work and a selected bibliography. About the Series Read by more than 12 million students over fifty-five years, Norton Critical Editions set the standard for apparatus that is right for undergraduate readers. The three-part format-annotated text, contexts and criticism-helps students to better understand, analyse and appreciate the literature, while opening a wide range of teaching possibilities for instructors. Whether in print or in digital format, Norton Critical Editions provide all the resources students need.

HarperCollins is pround to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'Ah, but let her cover the mark as she will, the pang of it will be always in her heart.' A tale of sin, punishment and atonement, The Scarlet Letter exposes the moral rigidity of a 17th-Century Puritan New England community when faced with the illegitimate child of a young mother. Regarded as the first real heroine of American fiction, it is Hester Prynne's strength of character that resonates with the reader when her harsh sentence is cast. It is in her refusal to reveal the identity of the father in the face of her accusers that Hawthorne champions his heroine and berates the weakness of Society for attacking the innocent.

In seventeenth-century Boston, Hester Prynne shoulders the scorn of her fellow Puritan townsfolk for bearing a child out of wedlock. For her refusal to name the father of her daughter Pearl, Hester is made to wear a scarlet 'A' stitched conspicuously upon her dress. But though she bears the stigma of the shame her peers would confer upon her, others feel the guilt for her transgression more acutely, notably the pious Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, the confessor with whom Hester and Pearl's destinies are intimately bound up. First published in 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne's historical study of guilt and sin has since been lauded as the most important work of fiction by its distinguished author and a landmark of American literature.

Delia Bacon (1811-59), an American writer and dramatist, is remembered today almost exclusively for this controversial 1857 book, in which she argues that the plays of 'Shakspere' were in fact written by a coterie of highly educated aristocrats, including Francis Bacon, Walter Raleigh and Edmund Spenser, for the purpose of disseminating a philosophy, encoded in the works, which was not intended to be understood by the popular audiences to whom they were ostensibly directed. The book considers the intellectual context in which the plays were written, arguing that radical changes in science and society craved by Bacon were impossible under the despotism of Queen Elizabeth, but could be infiltrated into the consciousness of the elite through drama. Delia Bacon enjoyed the friendship of Hawthorne (who wrote a preface to this book), and Emerson (who thought her a 'genius', but mad). The work sparked a debate on the authorship of the plays which still continues.

It is the mid-seventeenth century in Boston. Hester Prynne, dignified and silent, is led through prison doors to her public shaming by members of the Puritan town. Holding her illegitimate child to her breast, and bearing a bright scarlet letter “A� embroidered on her bodice, Hester must now struggle to create a new life for herself and her child within this censorious community. When her missing spouse reappears, reveals himself to her, and takes up residence in town under an assumed identity, Hester, her daughter, her disguised husband, and her clandestine lover are forced to abide in close quarters—leading quiet, anguished lives. But the secrets eat away at their keepers, and only the most resolute, the most spiritual—rather than the merely religious—will survive the fall-out from the affair's exposure.   

This second edition also includes: revised and expanded explanatory footnotes, a new preface and a note on the text by Leland S. Person; key passages from Hawthorne's notebooks and letters that suggest the close relationship between his private and public writings, and seven new critical essays by Brook Thomas, Michael Ryan, Thomas R. Mitchell, Jay Grossman, Jamie Barlowe, John Ronan and John F. Birk. A Chronology and revised and expanded Selected Bibliography is also included.

Introduction and Notes by Henry Claridge, Senior Lecturer, School of English, University of Kent at Canterbury. This is a troubling story of crime, sin, guilt, punishment and expiation, set in the rigid moral climate of 17th-century New England. The young mother of an illegitimate child confronts her Puritan judges. However, it is not so much her harsh sentence, but the cruelties of slowly exposed guilt as her lover is revealed, that hold the reader enthralled all the way to the book's poignant climax.

VINTAGE CLASSICS' AMERICAN GOTHIC SERIES Spine-tingling, mind-altering and deliciously atmospheric, journey into the dark side of America with nine of its most uncanny classics. Hester Prynne is a beautiful young woman. She is also an outcast. In the eyes of her neighbours she has committed an unforgivable sin. Everyone knows that her little daughter, Pearl, is the product of an illicit affair but no one knows the identity of Pearl's father. Hester's refusal to name him brings more condemnation upon her. But she stands strong in the face of public scorn, even when she is forced to wear the sign of her shame sewn onto her clothes: the scarlet letter 'A' for 'Adulteress'

Enriched Classics offer readers accessible editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and commentary. Each book includes educational tools alongside the text, enabling students and readers alike to gain a deeper and more developed understanding of the writer and their work. Set two centuries before Hawthorne's own time, The Scarlet Letter follows heroine Hester Prynne who is compelled by her Puritan society to wear a scarlet letter 'A' on her clothes as a symbol of her sin: adultery. Accompanied by colorful and flawed characters, including the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale who broods over a long-hidden secret, and Hester's husband Roger Chillingsworth who thirsts for vengeance, The Scarlet Letter, America's first psychological novel, is a masterpiece that explores humanity's unending struggles with pride, sin, and guilt. Enriched Classics enhance your engagement by introducing and explaining the historical and cultural significance of the work, the author's personal history, and what impact this book had on subsequent scholarship. Each book includes discussion questions that help clarify and reinforce major themes and reading recommendations for further research. Read with confidence.

For nearly a century and a half, Hawthorne's masterpiece has mesmerized readers and critics alike. One of the greatest American novels, its themes of sin, guilt and redemption, woven through a story of adultery in the early days of the Massachusetts Colony, are revealed with remarkable psychological penetration and understanding of the human heart. New introductory Note.

A dramatic, moving depiction of social defiance and social deference, of passion and human frailty.

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.

Roger Chillingworth arrives in New England after two years' separation from his wife, Hester Prynne, to find her on trial for adultery. She refuses to reveal her lover and is sentenced to wear a scarlet letter 'A' sewn onto her clothes. Resolving to discover the man's identity, Roger sets out to destroy his rival, while Hester desperately tries to protect her illegitimate daughter from a society determined to condemn them both. A smash hit in its day, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is the gripping tale of three New England settlers at odds with the seventeenth-century Puritan society in which they live, and remains one of literature's most evocative portraits of a love triangle. This beautiful Macmillan Collector's Library edition of The Scarlet Letter features an afterword by broadcaster Jonty Claypole.

The baby in her arms and the bright scarlet letter 'A' on her gown are evidence and punishment for the shame she has brought on her religious neighbours. Will Hester continue to conceal the name of the husband who sent her away from Europe years before as well as that of the father of her baby? Will the husband get his revenge on the man who has shamed him? Will that man admit his past and join Hester and her daughter Pearl? Or is the matter out of their hands, waiting to be decided between the forces of the Lord and of Satan?