



Produced by Dartmouth College










THE SCARLET LETTER

by Nathaniel Hawthorne



EDITOR'S NOTE

Nathaniel Hawthorne was already a man of forty-six, and a tale
writer of some twenty-four years' standing, when "The Scarlet
Letter" appeared.  He was born at Salem, Mass., on July 4th, 1804,
son of a sea-captain.  He led there a shy and rather sombre life;
of few artistic encouragements, yet not wholly uncongenial, his
moody, intensely meditative temperament being considered.  Its
colours and shadows are marvelously reflected in his "Twice-Told
Tales" and other short stories, the product of his first literary
period.  Even his college days at Bowdoin did not quite break
through his acquired and inherited reserve; but beneath it all,
his faculty of divining men and women was exercised with almost
uncanny prescience and subtlety.  "The Scarlet Letter," which
explains as much of this unique imaginative art, as is to be
gathered from reading his highest single achievement, yet needs
to be ranged with his other writings, early and late, to have its
last effect.  In the year that saw it published, he began "The
House of the Seven Gables," a later romance or prose-tragedy of
the Puritan-American community as he had himself known it--
defrauded of art and the joy of life, "starving for symbols" as
Emerson has it.  Nathaniel Hawthorne died at Plymouth, New
Hampshire, on May 18th, 1864.

The following is the table of his romances,
stories, and other works:

Fanshawe, published anonymously, 1826; Twice-Told Tales, 1st
Series, 1837; 2nd Series, 1842; Grandfather's Chair, a history
for youth, 1845: Famous Old People (Grandfather's Chair), 1841
Liberty Tree: with the last words of Grandfather's Chair, 1842;
Biographical Stories for Children, 1842; Mosses from an Old
Manse, 1846; The Scarlet Letter, 1850; The House of the Seven
Gables, 1851: True Stories from History and Biography (the whole
History of Grandfather's Chair), 1851 A Wonder Book for Girls and
Boys, 1851; The Snow Image and other Tales, 1851: The Blithedale
Romance, 1852; Life of Franklin Pierce, 1852; Tanglewood Tales
(2nd Series of the Wonder Book), 1853; A Rill from the Town-Pump,
with remarks, by Telba, 1857; The Marble Faun; or, The Romance of
Monte Beni (4 EDITOR'S NOTE) (published in England under the
title of "Transformation"), 1860, Our Old Home, 1863; Dolliver
Romance (1st Part in "Atlantic Monthly"), 1864; in 3 Parts, 1876;
Pansie, a fragment, Hawthorne' last literary effort, 1864;
American Note-Books, 1868; English Note Books, edited by Sophia
Hawthorne, 1870; French and Italian Note Books, 1871; Septimius
Felton; or, the Elixir of Life (from the "Atlantic Monthly"),
1872; Doctor Grimshawe's Secret, with Preface and Notes by
Julian Hawthorne, 1882.

Tales of the White Hills, Legends of New England, Legends of the
Province House, 1877, contain tales which had already been
printed in book form in "Twice-Told Tales" and the "Mosses"
"Sketched and Studies," 1883.

Hawthorne's contributions to magazines were numerous, and most of
his tales appeared first in periodicals, chiefly in "The Token,"
1831-1838, "New England Magazine," 1834,1835; "Knickerbocker,"
1837-1839; "Democratic Review," 1838-1846; "Atlantic Monthly,"
1860-1872 (scenes from the Dolliver Romance, Septimius Felton,
and passages from Hawthorne's Note-Books).

Works: in 24 volumes, 1879; in 12 volumes, with introductory
notes by Lathrop, Riverside Edition, 1883.

Biography, etc.; A. H. Japp (pseud.  H. A. Page), Memoir of N.
Hawthorne, 1872; J. T. Field's "Yesterdays with Authors," 1873 G.
P. Lathrop, "A Study of Hawthorne," 1876; Henry James English Men
of Letters, 1879; Julian Hawthorne, "Nathaniel Hawthorne and his
wife," 1885; Moncure D. Conway, Life of Nathaniel Hawthorne,
1891; Analytical Index of Hawthorne's Works, by E. M. O'Connor
1882.


CONTENTS

    INTRODUCTORY.     THE CUSTOM-HOUSE

    CHAPTER I.        THE PRISON-DOOR

    CHAPTER II.       THE MARKET-PLACE

    CHAPTER III.      THE RECOGNITION

    CHAPTER IV.       THE INTERVIEW

    CHAPTER V.        HESTER AT HER NEEDLE

    CHAPTER VI.       PEARL

    CHAPTER VII.      THE GOVERNOR'S HALL

    CHAPTER VIII.     THE ELF-CHILD AND THE MINISTER

    CHAPTER IX.       THE LEECH

    CHAPTER X.        THE LEECH AND HIS PATIENT

    CHAPTER XI.       THE INTERIOR OF A HEART

    CHAPTER XII.      THE MINISTER'S VIGIL

    CHAPTER XIII.     ANOTHER VIEW OF HESTER

    CHAPTER XIV.      HESTER AND THE PHYSICIAN

    CHAPTER XV.       HESTER AND PEARL

    CHAPTER XVI.      A FOREST WALK

    CHAPTER XVII.     THE PASTOR AND HIS PARISHIONER

    CHAPTER XVIII.    A FLOOD OF SUNSHINE

    CHAPTER XIX.      THE CHILD AT THE BROOK-SIDE

    CHAPTER XX.       THE MINISTER IN A MAZE

    CHAPTER XXI.      THE NEW ENGLAND HOLIDAY

    CHAPTER XXII.     THE PROCESSION

    CHAPTER XXIII.    THE REVELATION OF THE SCARLET LETTER

    CHAPTER XXIV.     CONCLUSION




THE CUSTOM-HOUSE

INTRODUCTORY TO "THE SCARLET LETTER"


It is a little remarkable, that--though disinclined to talk
overmuch of myself and my affairs at the fireside, and to my
personal friends--an autobiographical impulse should twice in my
life have taken possession of me, in addressing the public.  The
first time was three or four years since, when I favoured the
reader--inexcusably, and for no earthly reason that either the
indulgent reader or the intrusive author could imagine--with a
description of my way of life in the deep quietude of an Old
Manse.  And now--because, beyond my deserts, I was happy enough
to find a listener or two on the former occasion--I again seize
the public by the button, and talk of my three years' experience
in a Custom-House.  The example of the famous "P. P., Clerk of
this Parish," was never more faithfully followed.  The truth
seems to be, however, that when he casts his leaves forth upon
the wind, the author addresses, not the many who will fling
aside his volume, or never take it up, but the few who will
understand him better than most of his schoolmates or lifemates.
Some authors, indeed, do far more than this, and indulge
themselves in such confidential depths of revelation as could
fittingly be addressed only and exclusively to the one heart and
mind of perfect sympathy; as if the printed book, thrown at
large on the wide world, were certain to find out the divided
segment of the writer's own nature, and complete his circle of
existence by bringing him into communion with it.  It is scarcely
decorous, however, to speak all, even where we speak
impersonally.  But, as thoughts are frozen and utterance
benumbed, unless the speaker stand in some true relation with
his audience, it may be pardonable to imagine that a friend, a
kind and apprehensive, though not the closest friend, is
listening to our talk; and then, a native reserve being thawed
by this genial consciousness, we may prate of the circumstances
that lie around us, and even of ourself, but still keep the
inmost Me behind its veil.  To this extent, and within these
limits, an author, methinks, may be autobiographical, without
violating either the reader's rights or his own.

It will be seen, likewise, that this Custom-House sketch has a
certain propriety, of a kind always recognised in literature, as
explaining how a large portion of the following pages came into
my possession, and as offering proofs of the authenticity of a
narrative therein contained.  This, in fact--a desire to put
myself in my true position as editor, or very little more, of
the most prolix among the tales that make up my volume--this,
and no other, is my true reason for assuming a personal relation
with the public.  In accomplishing the main purpose, it has
appeared allowable, by a few extra touches, to give a faint
representation of a mode of life not heret