This Norton Critical Edition of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s most famous and influential novel is based on the 1850 third edition, the text read by most nineteenth-century readers. Also included are the five shorter works most relevant to The Scarlet Letter--"Mrs. Hutchinson," "Endicott and the Red Cross," "Young Goodman Brown," "The Minister’s Black Veil," and "The Birth-mark." Each text is accompanied by detailed explanatory annotation.

This Norton Critical Edition of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s most famous and influential novel is based on the 1850 third edition, the text read by most nineteenth-century readers. Also included are the five shorter works most relevant to The Scarlet Letter--"Mrs. Hutchinson," "Endicott and the Red Cross," "Young Goodman Brown," "The Minister’s Black Veil," and "The Birth-mark." Each text is accompanied by detailed explanatory annotation.

"Contexts" includes a rich collection of Hawthorne’s letters and notebook entries. Hawthorne’s attitudes toward politics, especially slavery and abolition, are revealed in a generous excerpt from his campaign biography of his lifelong friend, Franklin Pierce.

"Criticism" provides a sweeping overview of both early and modern commentary on The Scarlet Letter and the five accompanying stories, with emphasis on recent publications and examples of current critical approaches. Among the thirty-seven contributors are Robert S. Levine, Sacvan Bercovitch, Millicent Bell, Nina Baym, Michael T. Gilmore, Larry J. Reynolds, Jean Fagan Yellin, Amy Schrager Lang, J. Hillis Miller, Judith Fetterley, and Leland S. Person.

A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included.

Preface

A Note on the Texts

The Texts of The Scarlet Letter and

  Other Writings

THE SCARLET LETTER

 Preface to the Second Edition

 The Custom-House

 The Scarlet Letter

OTHER WRITINGS

 Mrs. Hutchinson

 Endicott and the Red Cross

 Young Goodman Brown

 The Minister’s Black Veil

 The Birth-mark

Contexts

 Nathaniel Hawthorne · From American Notebooks

   · From Letters

   · From The Life of Franklin Pierce

Criticism

NINETEENTH-CENTURY REVIEWS OF THE SCARLET LETTER

  Evert A. Duyckinck · From Literary World

  [Edwin Percy Whipple] · From Graham’s Magazine

  [Anne W. Abbott] · From North American Review

  Orestes Brownson · From Brownson’s Quarterly

  [Arthur Cleveland Coxe] · From Church Review

  Amory Dwight Mayo · From Universalist Quarterly

  [Jane Swisshelm] · From the Saturday Visiter

  Robert S. Levine · Antebellum Feminists on

     Hawthorne: Reconsidering the Reception of

    The Scarlet Letter

PURITAN BACKGROUND AND SOURCES

  Charles Ryskamp · The New England Sources of

     The Scarlet Letter

  Michael J. Colacurcio · Footsteps of Ann Hutchinson:

     The Context of The Scarlet Letter

  Frederick Newberry · A Red-Hot A and a Lusting

   Divine: Sources for The Scarlet Letter

  Kristin Boudreau · Hawthorne’s Model of Christian

   Charity

  Ellen Weinauer · Considering Possession in

   The Scarlet Letter

THE CUSTOM-HOUSE

  John Franzosa * "The Custom-House," The Scarlet

   Letter, and Hawthorne’s Separation from Salem

  Douglas Anderson · Jefferson, Hawthorne, and

   "The Custom-House"

THE SCARLET LETFER

  Michael Winship · Hawthorne and the "Scribbling

   Women": Publishing The Scarlet Letter in the

   Nineteenth-Century United States

  Laura Hanft Korobkin · The Scarlet Letter of the Law:

   Hawthorne and Criminal Justice

  Millicent Bell · The Obliquity of Signs: The Scarlet

   Letter

  David Leverenz · Mrs. Hawthorne’s Headache: Reading

   The Scarlet Letter

  Stephen Railton · The Address of The Scarlet Letter

  Louise DeSalvo · Nathaniel Hawthorne and the

   Feminists: The Scarlet Letter

  Robert K. Martin · Hester Prynne, C’est Moi:

   Nathaniel Hawthorne and the Anxieties of Gender

  T. Walter Herbert, Jr. · Nathaniel Hawthorne,

   Una Hawthorne, and The Scarlet Letter: Interactive

   Selfhoods and the Cultural Construction of

   Gender

  Nina Baym · Revisiting Hawthorne’s Feminism

  Bethany Reid · Narrative of the Captivity and

   Redemption of Roger Prynne: Rereading

  The Scarlet Letter

  Sacvan Bercovitch · The A-Politics of Ambiguity in

   The Scarlet Letter

  Michael T. Gilmore · Hawthorne and the Making of

  the Middle Class

  Larry J. Reynolds · The Scarlet Letter and Revolutions

  Abroad

  Jean Fagan Yellin · The Scarlet Letter and the

  Antislavery Feminists

  Leland S. Person · The Dark Labyrinth of Mind:

  Hawthorne, Hester, and the Ironies of Racial

  Mothering

OTHER WRITINGS

  Amy Schrager Lang · Anne Hutchinson

  John Nickel · Hawthorne’s Demystification of History

  in "Endicott and the Red Cross"

 David Levin · Shadows of Doubt: Specter Evidence in

    Hawthorne’s "Young Goodman Brown"

 Frederick Crews · Escapism in "Young Goodman

    Brown" and "The Minister’s Black Veil"

 J. Hillis Miller · The Problem of History in "The

    Minister’s Black Veil"

 Judith Fetterley · Women Beware Science: "The

    Birthmark"

 Cindy Weinstein · The Invisible Hand Made Visible:

    "The Birth-mark"

Nathaniel Hawthorne: A Chronology

Selected Bibliography