The Scarlet Letter
The Complete and Unabridged Classic Edition
with photos from the motion picture

Nathaniel Hawthorne's remarkable tale of a passionate woman caught between two men, her righteous husband, Roger Chillingworth, and her heart's true desire, Arthur Dimmesdale, remains one of the most popular and enduring masterpieces of American literature.

Trapped in the rigid, newly established community of seventeenth-century Puritan Boston, young Hester Prynne, while awaiting her husband's arrival from England, surrenders to the powerful attraction between herself and Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, the pastor of the community. But Dimmesdale proves to be a timid and weak man, divided between his sense of moral obligation and his desire for the beautiful Hester. As their secret passion blossoms and gives birth to their child, Pearl, Hester is forced to wear the badge of her shame, the letter "A" signifying her sin of adultery. Abandoned by her lover and the object of her husband's self-righteous vengefulness, Hester and her daughter are left to protect themselves in the harsh moral climate of Puritan Boston.

By drawing on her inner strength, Hester navigates through the perpetual conflict between the rules of society and the struggle of the individual spirit, and gathers the courage to face her community, emerging as a symbol of strength -- the first American heroine.

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