The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne

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Title: The Scarlet Letter

Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne

Illustrator: Mary Hallock Foote
L. S. Ipsen

Release Date: May 5, 2008 [EBook #25344]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE SCARLET LETTER.

BY

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.

Illustrated.

[Illustration]

BOSTON:
JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY,
LATE TICKNOR & FIELDS, AND FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO.
1878.

COPYRIGHT, 1850 AND 1877.
BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE AND JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO.

_All rights reserved._
October 22, 1874.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

Much to the author's surprise, and (if he may say so without
additional offence) considerably to his amusement, he finds that his
sketch of official life, introductory to THE SCARLET LETTER, has
created an unprecedented excitement in the respectable community
immediately around him. It could hardly have been more violent,
indeed, had he burned down the Custom-House, and quenched its last
smoking ember in the blood of a certain venerable personage, against
whom he is supposed to cherish a peculiar malevolence. As the public
disapprobation would weigh very heavily on him, were he conscious of
deserving it, the author begs leave to say, that he has carefully read
over the introductory pages, with a purpose to alter or expunge
whatever might be found amiss, and to make the best reparation in his
power for the atrocities of which he