One can make some fairly spot on assumptions about Nathaniel Hawthorne based on this, and I mean no disrespect but he makes me chuckle a bit. In the second edition, which I have, he has also written an introduction to his previous introduction. There is an introduction to this novel, written by Hawthorne himself in the style of what we commonly see nowadays under the title of ‘Author Note’, however it goes on for about 35 pages and is fairly dry reading.
So if you truly still don’t know what this novel is about, even after all of the various forms of adaptation, don’t read any further. Now, given that this is a classic, I’m going to freely discuss it without a care for spoilers.
The language would have put her off immediately. I love the language within this novel, but it’s definitely more complex reading than what some other classics may contain, and I can’t imagine my daughter, who is also in Year 12, coping with this novel. The dialogue is rather Shakespearean, in keeping with the era in which it’s set. Quite a slog for a school read, if you ask me. It was put back onto my radar by my niece who had to read it for one of her Year 12 English units. I’ve read it before, many years ago, but decided on a re-read as part of my Classics Eight challenge.
It was one of the first mass-produced books in America. Originally published in 1850, The Scarlet Letter is a novel of historical fiction set in the puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony during the years 1642 to 1649. Adapted to numerous plays, films, and operas. The story of Hester Prynne, who bears a scarlet “A” upon her breast as a symbol of her adultery, and that of her pious lover who atones in tormented silence, is one that has captivated readers since its publication in 1850. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne takes readers back to the puritan days of the American colonies, into a society as unforgiving as its harsh New England winters.
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