In colonial New England, beautiful, young Hester Pryne bears a child although her husband is presumed lost at sea. She refuses to name the father and is condemned to wear a scarlet "A" and live as an outcast. As she transforms the badge of shame into a symbol of freedom, Hawthorne's dramatic masterpiece envisions an authentic relation between the sexes-and a different way of imagining love, sin, and redemption-that can form the basis for America's radical project of a true democracy.

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) was born in Salem, Massachusetts, as the direct descendant of Puritan settlers from England. While employed in other professions, he became one of America's greatest writers by probing our nation's political and moral commitments in haunting tales and novels that wrestle with the deep themes of sin, guilt, and redemption.