The classic American novel, rejacketed with a new foreword by Tom Perotta and introduction by Hawthorne scholar Robert Milder Set in the harsh Puritan community of 17th century Boston, this is a tale of an adulterous entanglement that results in an illegitimate birth. The mother of the child, Hester Prynne, is publicly disgraced and ostracized but emerges as the first true heroine of American fiction.