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The Scarlet Letter
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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The Scarlet Letter
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,
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‘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
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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
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wife,’ 1885; Moncure D. Conway, Life of Nathaniel
Hawthorne, 1891; Analytical Index of Hawthorne’s
Works, by E. M. O’Connor 1882.
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