A stark and allegorical tale of adultery, guilt, and social repression in Puritan New England, The Scarlet Letter is a foundational work of American literature. Nathaniel Hawthorne's exploration of the dichotomy between the public and private self, internal passion and external convention, gives us the unforgettable Hester Prynne, who discovers strength in the face of ostracism and emerges as a heroine ahead of her time.

Enriched eBook Features Editor Monika Elbert provides the following specially commissioned features for this Enriched eBook Classic:

* Filmography

* Nineteenth-Century Reviews of The Scarlet Letter

* Chronology of Hawthorne's Life and Times (with Images)

* Historical Time Line: Seventeenth-Century England and New England (Massachusetts Bay Colony)

* Witchcraft and The Scarlet Letter (with Images and Martha Corey’s Testimony)

* Puritan Pleasures and Punishments (with Images)

* Puritan Child Rearing and Puritan Children

* Puritan Fashion and The Scarlet Letter: The Good, the Bad, and the Bizarre (with Images)

* Hester Prynne and Nineteenth-Century Women’s Rights Movements

* Bibliography and Further Reading

* Images of The Scarlet Letter

* Enriched eBook Notes

The enriched eBook format invites readers to go beyond the pages of these beloved works and gain more insight into the life and times of an author and the period in which the book was originally written for a rich reading experience.

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) was born in Salem, Massachusetts, the son and grandson of proud New England seafarers. He lived in genteel poverty with his widowed mother and two young sisters in a house filled with Puritan ideals and family pride in a prosperous past. His boyhood was, in most respects, pleasant and normal. In 1825 he was graduated from Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, and he returned to Salem determined to become a writer of short stories. For the next twelve years he was plagued with unhappiness and self-doubts as he struggled to master his craft. He finally secured some small measure of success with the publication of his Twice-Told Tales (1837). His marriage to Sophia Peabody in 1842 was a happy one. The Scarlet Letter (1850), which brought him immediate recognition, was followed by The House of the Seven Gables (1851). After serving four years as the American Consul in Liverpool, England, he traveled in Italy; he returned home to Massachusetts in 1860. Depressed, weary of writing, and failing in health, he died on May 19, 1864, at Plymouth, New Hampshire