The Scarlet Letter
Nathaniel Hawthorne · 1804–1864 · United States
Why it matters
An adulteress is forced to wear a scarlet 'A' embroidered on her chest in Puritan Boston, while her secret partner's guilt eats him alive in silence. American fiction's founding study of sin, shame, and hypocrisy.
At a glance
gothicpsychological novel
Difficulty 7/10slow pace238 pagesOrnate nineteenth-century syntax and heavy symbolic digression.
Deep dive
Why the same scarlet A that brands Hester as 'Adulteress' slowly gets reread by the town as standing for something else entirely — and whose authorship over the letter's meaning the novel is really tracking.
Where to go next
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Ann Radcliffe · 1794The Mysteries of UdolphoLvl 5Slow burn