Price: $8.00 - $7.44
(as of Feb 15, 2025 16:06:38 UTC – Details)
The canonical American masterpiece of sin, guilt, and revenge, in an authoritative new edition from Penguin Classics with a foreword by Tom Perrotta
At once retrospective and radically new, The Scarlet Letter portrays seventeenth-century Puritan New England, a time period irreversibly encoded in the American identity. Hawthorne built one of the most incisive and devastating human dramas ever written out of a community and its outcasts: Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale, one emblazoned with sin and the other distraught with hidden guilt; Pearl, a child born into ostracism; and Roger Chillingworth, driven to vengeance by hatred. Though these characters face a set of specifically troubling circumstances, their words and actions point to moral truths inherent in human affairs, independent of time and place.
The text of this edition, approved by the Center for Scholarly Editions of the Modern Language Association, is the result of an exhaustive examination of Hawthorne’s manuscript and other historical records. Robert Milder provides an enlightening new scholarly introduction and bibliography. Tom Perrotta, whose novel The Leftovers—now a hit HBO show—was influenced by Hawthorne’s work, provides a thoughtful foreword on how he came to appreciate Hawthorne’s masterpiece.
For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Publisher : Penguin Classics; First Edition (December 1, 2015)
Language : English
Paperback : 288 pages
ISBN-10 : 0143107666
ISBN-13 : 978-0143107668
Lexile measure : 410L
Item Weight : 8 ounces
Dimensions : 0.75 x 5.08 x 7.75 inches
Customers say
Customers find the book thought-provoking and insightful. They consider it a good value for money. Readers appreciate the well-developed characters and their motivations. Many describe the story as interesting and chilling. Opinions differ on the readability, with some finding the writing great and capturing moments well, while others feel the sentences are long and unwieldy.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
