The Scarlet Letter

Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne
Year: 1850
Famous for: The scarlet letter A, a tormented minister who punishes himself in secret, a devilish husband determined to expose his wife’s darkest secret.
Main character: Hester Prynne, the local adulteress who struggles to find an identity for herself in a straight-laced Puritan town.

Hester Prynne has a secret. No, not the fact that she committed adultery. Everybody in her Puritan town knows about that. Between the baby and the scarlet letter A on her chest, her sin isn’t something that Hester can really do much to hide. But her partner in crime? That’s a deep, dark secret. And Hester isn’t telling.

So who is Hester’s fellow adulterer in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter? You’ll find out long before Hester’s vengeful husband does. But that’s mostly because Hawthorne’s novel is a study in guilt—how guilt changes us, and how guilt (and sin) affect our community.

It probably doesn’t sound like light reading, and we’d be lying if we said it was. Thankfully, Jenny’s got the scoop on everything that makes The Scarlet Letter seem so inaccessible—and also on what makes The Scarlet Letter one of the most enduring stories in American literature. Tune in to find out for yourself.