The Scarlet Letter

Author(s): Nathaniel Hawthorne

Classics

This is 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 self divided; trapped by the rules of society, he suppresses his passion and disavows his lover, Hester, and their daughter, Pearl.

General Information

  • : 9780143105442
  • : Penguin Publishing Group
  • : Penguin Publishing Group
  • : 0.288
  • : 213mm X 142mm X 17mm
  • : United Kingdom
  • : 01 October 2011
  • : books

Other Specifications

  • : Nathaniel Hawthorne
  • : Paperback
  • : Deluxe ed
  • : 813.3
  • : 256
  • : illustrations
  • : illustrations

More About The Product

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

Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on July 4, 1804, in Salem, Massachusetts. In 1825 he graduated from Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, and returned to Salem determined to become a writer. He finally secured some measure of success with his Twice-Told Tales in 1837. The Scarlet Letter (1850), which brought him immediate recognition, was followed by The House of the Seven Gables (1851). He died on May 19, 1864. Born in Havana, Cuba in 1961, Ruben Toledo is an illustrator, painter, sculptor and filmmaker. His fashion illustrations have appeared in Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, The New Yorker, Visionaire, Paper, Interview and The New York Times, and his commissions have included Tiffany & Co., Estee Lauder and Nordstrom's national advertising campaign. Toledo and his designer wife Isabel Toledo are the subject of both a book and museum exhibition entitled Toledo/Toledo: A Marriage of Art and Fashion. Together they were recipients of the 2005 Cooper-Hewitt Design Award for their work in fashion.