The Scarlet Letter (Wordsworth Classics)

Introduction and Notes by Henry Claridge, Senior Lecturer, School of English, University of Kent at Canterbury.

This is a troubling story of crime, sin, guilt, punishment and expiation, set in the rigid moral climate of 17th-century New England. The young mother of an illegitimate child confronts her Puritan judges.

However, it is not so much her harsh sentence, but the cruelties of slowly exposed guilt as her lover is revealed, that hold the reader enthralled all the way to the book's poignant climax.

Introducere si note de Henry Claridge, lector principal, scoala de engleza, Universitatea Kent din Canterbury. Aceasta este o poveste ingrijoratoare despre crima, pacat, vinovatie, pedeapsa si expiatie, situata in climatul moral rigid al Noii Anglii din secolul al XVII-lea. Tanara mama a unui copil nelegitim se confrunta cu judecatorii ei puritani, insa nu atat sentinta ei dura, cat cruzimile culpabilitatii expuse incet, pe masura ce se dezvaluie iubitul ei, sunt cele care tin cititorul captivat pana la punctul culminant agitat al cartii.