Before You Begin

Before you begin.

In seventeenth-century Boston, Hester Prynne is made to wear an embroidered scarlet letter before the whole town. She builds a quiet life at the settlement’s edge with her young daughter, Pearl, while ministers, magistrates, and a physician draw close to the questions surrounding them. Their story asks what public judgment can know about a private conscience.

Nathaniel Hawthorne published The Scarlet Letter in 1850. Its opening pages introduce the Custom-House before the novel turns to Puritan Boston of the 1640s, where strict law and inward feeling often pull in different directions. The book moves between the marketplace, Hester’s cottage, and the forest, tracing how a single visible mark can gather many meanings.

This illustrated edition follows the novel through its twenty-four chapters. Character portraits, selected places, full-page scenes, and Story Medallions accompany the text; chapter recaps unlock as you read. Begin at the prison door, and let the story’s meanings unfold with each chapter.