01567cam a2200253 i 4500 283106832 TxAuBib 20010531120000.0 010531m19621983||||||||||||||||||||eng|u 82-24541 9780140390193 $5.00 0140390197 $5.00 TxAuBib rda Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864. The Scarlet Letter / Nathaniel Hawthorne. New York : Penguin Books, 1962-1983. 283 p : paperback. txt rdacontent n rdamedia nc rdacarrier 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 wth the tension between the public and the private self. 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. As Nina Baym points out in her introduction, The Scarlet Letter was not written as realistic, historical fiction, but as a "romance," a creation of the imagination that discloses the truth of the human heart. 20010531. Characters and characteristics in literature Fiction.