First published in 1850, &quot;The Scarlet Letter&quot; by Nathaniel Hawthorne is considered a masterpiece of&nbsp;American literature&nbsp;and a classic&nbsp;moral&nbsp;study.<br /><br />The novel is set in a 17th-century village in&nbsp;Puritan&nbsp;New England. The main character is&nbsp;Hester Prynne, a young woman who has borne a child out of wedlock. Hester believes herself a widow, but her husband,&nbsp;Roger Chillingworth, returns to New England very much alive and conceals his identity. He finds his wife forced to wear the scarlet letter A on her dress as punishment for her&nbsp;adultery. Chillingworth becomes obsessed with finding the identity of his wife&rsquo;s former lover. When he learns that the father of Hester&rsquo;s child is&nbsp;Arthur Dimmesdale, a saintly young minister who is the leader of those exhorting her to name the child&rsquo;s father, Chillingworth proceeds to torment the guilt-stricken young man...