This perennially popular Norton Critical Edition has been revised to reflect the most current scholarly approaches to The Scarlet Letter--Hawthorne's most widely read novel--as well as to the five short prose works--"Mrs. Hutchinson," "Endicott and the Red Cross," "Young Goodman Brown," "The Minister's Black Veil," and "The Birth-mark"--that closely relate to the 1850 novel.

This perennially popular Norton Critical Edition has been revised to reflect the most current scholarly approaches to The Scarlet Letter—Hawthorne’s most widely read novel—as well as to the five short prose works—“Mrs. Hutchinson,” “Endicott and the Red Cross,” “Young Goodman Brown,” “The Minister’s Black Veil,” and “The Birth-mark”—that closely relate to the 1850 novel. This Second Norton Critical 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 · 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.

This perennially popular Norton Critical Edition has been revised to reflect the most current scholarly approaches to The Scarlet Letter—Hawthorne’s most widely read novel—as well as to the five short prose works—“Mrs. Hutchinson,” “Endicott and the Red Cross,” “Young Goodman Brown,” “The Minister’s Black Veil,” and “The Birth-mark”—that closely relate to the 1850 novel. This Second Norton Critical 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 · 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.

Featuring an appendix of discussion questions, the Diversion Classics edition is ideal for use in book groups and classrooms. After Hester Prynne confesses to the crime of adultery, she dons the scarlet letter A that marks her as a sinner. But also guilty in this story are Reverend Dimmesdale, the minister who sinfully fathered Hester's child, and Chillingworth, Hester's estranged husband who is bent on revenge. A tale of morality, religion, and redemption, THE SCARLET LETTER is one of Nathaniel Hawthorne's most brilliant and controversial works.

Presents an annotated edition of "The Scarlet Letter," the story of a young wife convicted of adultery in seventeenth-century New England, and includes five shorter works by Hawthorne, a selection of the author's letters and notebook entries, and critical commentary.

In 17th century New England, an adulterous relation between Hester Prynne and a lover she refuses to name, results in the birth of a daughter, Pearl. To advertise Hester's sin, she is forced to wear a crimson 'A' on her bosom, and the cumulative, constant disapproval of the tightly-knit Puritan community makes life a daily torture. But worse torments beset the unnamed father, torn between love of Hester and his daughter, and a desire to maintain his position within the unforgiving Puritan society. Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel is at once a sombre, almost gothic romance, and a pungent critique of societies that seek to overly restrict human activity. The author mercilessly dissects human relationships, examining themes of shame, dread and mental anguish, in a book that has become an American Classic.