The Scarlet Letter

The red letter "A" on her dress marks young mother Hester Prynne among her Puritan neighbors, who demand to know who fathered her child. Rumors swirl, but the shunned and shamed Hester keeps her secret for years, until a guilt-ridden confession reveals the truth, with unexpected consequences. Set in seventeenth-century Massachusetts, Hawthorne's masterwork was originally subtitled "a romance," though its themes include the limits of law, the power of religion, and the nature of sin.