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A multidisciplinary study of Hawthorne's classic through rare documents from the 17th and 19th centuries and current news articles. This casebook examines the novel in the context of its time as well as its incredibly enduring relevance to contemporary social, moral, and political issues.

Table of Contents

Introduction A Literary Analysis of The Scarlet Letter The Scarlet Letter and the Puritans The Puritan Mind Crime and Punishment in Massachusetts Bay Anne Hutchinson and Hester Prynne Witchcraft and The Scarlett Letter "The Custom-House": Hawthorne, the 19th-century, and The Scarlet Letter "A" Is for Artist The Creative Struggles of Nathaniel Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter: Issues in the 1980s and 1990s Glossary Index

About the Author

CLAUDIA DURST JOHNSON is Professor of English at the University of Alabama, where for 12 years she chaired the Department of English. She is Series Editor of the Greenwood Press Literature in Context series, which includes Understanding The Scarlet Letter. She is the author of two other volumes in the series, Understanding To Kill a Mockingbird (Greenwood Press, 1994) and Understanding Huckleberry Finn (forthcoming). She is also author of To Kill a Mockingbird: Threatening Boundaries (1994), American Actress: Perspective on the Nineteenth Century (1984), Memoirs of the Nineteenth-Century Theatre (Greenwood, 1982), The Productive Tension of Hawthorne's Art (1981), and (with Henry Jacobs) An Annotated Bibliography of Shakespearean Burlesques, Parodies, and Travesties (1976), as well as numerous articles on American literature and theatre.

Reviews

?This thoroughly thought-provoking volume will prove useful to English/history/humanities teachers and student researchers, on their mutual journeys toward richer understanding of American history, Hawthorne's novel, and complex issues society continues to explore.?-VOYA

"This thoroughly thought-provoking volume will prove useful to English/history/humanities teachers and student researchers, on their mutual journeys toward richer understanding of American history, Hawthorne's novel, and complex issues society continues to explore."-VOYA