This is a dramatic, moving depiction of social defiance and social deference, of passion and human frailty. Set in the harsh Puritan community of seventeenth-century Boston, this tale of an adulterous entanglement that results in an illegitimate birth reveals Nathaniel Hawthorne's concerns with the tension between the public and the private selves. Publicly disgraced and ostracized, Hester Prynne draws on her inner strength and certainty of spirit to emerge as the first true heroine of American fiction. Arthur Dimmesdale stands as a classic study of a self divided; trapped by the rules of society, he suppresses his passion and disavows his lover, Hester, and their daughter, Pearl.
- ISBN10 0143105442
- ISBN13 9780143105442
- Publish Date 25 August 2009
- Publish Status Active
- Out of Print 15 December 2016
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
- Imprint Penguin Classics
- Edition Special edition
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 256
- Language English
- URL https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780143105442