Set in 17th-century Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony, during the years 1642 to 1649, The scarlet letter tells the story of Hester Prynne, who conceives a daughter through an affair and struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity. As she tries to raise her rambunctious daughter, Pearl, on her own, the father of her child is revealed and is shown to be experiencing severe guilt. Through the scorn and judgment of the citizens and Roger Chillingworth - Hester's husband -, the two decide to remain together. Throughout the book, Nathaniel Hawthorne explores themes of legalism, sin, and guilt.
Henry James once said of this novel, "It is beautiful, admirable, extraordinary; it has in the highest degree that merit which I have spoken of as the mark of Hawthorne's best things—an indefinable purity and lightness of conception...One can often return to it; it supports familiarity and has the inexhaustible charm and mystery of great works of art.