SCARLET LETTER, THE

Having been found guilty of adultery, Hester Prynne is forced to wear an embroid
ered scarlet letter "A" 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 th
e consequences of her infidelity and find a place for herself and her illegitima
te child in the hostile environment of seventeenth-century Puritan Boston. Natha
niel Hawthorne's tense narrative astonished readers with its unparalleled psycho
logical depth when it first appeared, and the novel now stands as one of America
's literary landmarks.