Praised by Henry James as “beautiful, admirable, extraordinary,” The Scarlet Letter is Nathaniel Hawthorne’s masterpiece. This classic dark romance weaves intricate characters with vivid scenes and examines the risks of deceit and desire amid the Puritan life. While nearly all contemporary publications of the book feature the second-edition text, which introduced hundreds of changes to the original, the first edition is the most fluid and expressive telling of Hawthorne’s touchstone work. This all-new publication features the complete unabridged text, meticulously reproduced from page scans of the 1850 first-edition book. Each page was verified word by word and mark by mark, then corrected for typos to make for a clean reading experience.