50 Fun Facts About The Scarlet Letter

Who wrote The Scarlet Letter?

It was published in 1850 and became one of the first mass-produced books in America.

What does Hester Prynne's scarlet letter 'A' stand for?

Later in the book many townspeople insist it means something more flattering.

In which colony is the novel set?

The action runs from 1642 to 1649 in Puritan Boston.

What is Hester's daughter described as being, in another form?

She is 'the scarlet letter endowed in life', a constant reminder of the sin.

How long must Hester stand on the scaffold at the start of the novel?

The scaffold of a former gallows appears three times, marking the book's beginning, middle and end.

What name does Hester's long-lost husband adopt on arriving in Boston?

He had been presumed lost at sea after sending Hester ahead to the New World.

What profession does Chillingworth take up in Boston?

He is first brought to Hester's cell to calm her and the baby with roots and herbs.

Which minister is secretly the father of Hester's child?

His name contains 'dim', evoking the faintness and gloom of his guilty state.

How does Hester earn her living after leaving prison?

Her embroidery is of extraordinary quality, and she lives in a cottage on the edge of town.

Which governor does Hester petition when the church threatens to take her daughter away?

Dimmesdale persuades him to let the child remain with her mother.

What does Chillingworth find when he pulls aside the sleeping Dimmesdale's vestment?

Most witnesses later swear they saw a scarlet A on the minister's chest when he dies.

Where does Hester meet Dimmesdale to reveal her husband's identity and propose escape?

She convinces him to sail for Europe with her and the child.

On which day does Dimmesdale finally confess on the scaffold and die?

He has just preached one of his most inspired sermons.

Who inherits a substantial fortune from Chillingworth after his death?

He dies within a year of losing his object of vengeance, leaving property in New England and Europe.

What heraldic epitaph is on the shared tombstone of Hester and Dimmesdale?

It means a red letter A on a black background.

What do many townspeople later say the letter A stands for, so strong is Hester?

The novel says they refused to interpret the letter by its original signification.

What celestial event, shaped like an A, appears during Dimmesdale's night vigil on the scaffold?

To him it is God exposing his sin; others read it as a sign of an angel.

Which plant grows beside the prison door as a symbol of nature's beauty amid sorrow?

Hawthorne offers it as an invitation to find 'some sweet moral blossom' in the tale.

Which real religious dissenter, exiled from Boston in the 1630s, is mentioned in Chapter 1?

The chapter is 'The Prison Door'; she moved to Rhode Island after her excommunication.

Which real woman, executed for witchcraft in 1656, tempts Hester toward witchcraft?

Hawthorne makes her the sister of the colony's governor.

Which biblical story is depicted in the tapestry in Dimmesdale's room?

The tale of an adulterous king was a pointed choice of decor for the guilty minister.

Whose gravestone in King's Chapel Burying Ground is said to have inspired the lovers' grave?

Scholar Laurie Rozakis suggests a flogged woman named Hester Craford as another source.

What is the title of the introductory sketch that enraged the people of Salem?

Hawthorne reprinted it unchanged in the second edition, disclaiming any ill feeling.

Which Boston firm published The Scarlet Letter in the spring of 1850?

It began Hawthorne's most lucrative period, though the book earned him little over fourteen years.

How quickly did the first mechanised printing of 2,500 copies sell out?

Most home-grown books of the era were hand-bound and sold in tiny quantities.

How much did the novel earn Hawthorne over fourteen years?

It was an instant best-seller nonetheless.

What is untrue about the old claim that James T. Fields shaped the book?

Fields did persuade Hawthorne to publish it alone, but had nothing to do with its length.

At which Salem address did Hawthorne write the manuscript?

The Peter Edgerley House still stands as a private residence and was the family's last Salem home.

Which English novelist ranked it with Hiawatha as America's two 'most masterly productions'?

She paired it with Longfellow's The Song of Hiawatha.

Which 20th-century writer called it a 'perfect work of the American imagination'?

Henry James praised its 'indefinable purity and lightness of conception'.

What word did Hawthorne prefer to 'novel' for the book, as its subtitle shows?

He described a 'neutral territory, somewhere between the real world and fairyland'.

How was Hawthorne's surname originally spelled?

He probably added the 'w' in his early twenties to distance himself from notorious ancestors.

Hawthorne's great-great-grandfather John sat as a judge in which notorious proceedings?

The judge was one of the leading interrogators and never repented.

What job did Hawthorne hold in Salem from 1846 until a change of government cost him it?

He was a Democrat and lost the post to the spoils system, then wrote the book.

Which college did Hawthorne attend, graduating in 1825 with future president Franklin Pierce?

He later wrote Pierce's campaign biography and was rewarded with the Liverpool consulship.

Which novelist befriended Hawthorne at an August 1850 picnic and dedicated Moby-Dick to him?

He wrote that Hawthorne's stories were 'shrouded in blackness, ten times black'.

Which Gothic novel did Hawthorne publish in 1851, the year after The Scarlet Letter?

Its Pyncheon family is cursed by an ancestor's role in the witch trials.

Where did Hawthorne die in his sleep in May 1864, on a trip with Franklin Pierce?

They were touring the White Mountains.

Which silent-film star played Hester in the acclaimed 1926 adaptation?

Directed by Victor Sjöström, it is often called the best film version of the novel.

Who played Hester Prynne in the widely panned 1995 film?

Gary Oldman was Dimmesdale and Robert Duvall Chillingworth; it lost money on a $46 million budget.

How did the 1995 film's star defend its changed ending?

Gary Oldman later named it one of four films he would take to a desert island.

Which 2010 teen comedy, starring Emma Stone, was partly inspired by the novel?

Her character Olive stitches a red A onto her clothes after reading the book in English class.

Which director made a 1973 film of the novel?

Earlier versions came in 1908, 1911, 1926 and 1934.

Which American composer premiered an opera of The Scarlet Letter in 1896?

A stage version had opened at Barnum's American Museum as early as 1858.

Which novelist reworked the story in a trilogy including S. and Roger's Version?

The third book of his Scarlet Letter trilogy is A Month of Sundays.

Which admired writer's physical decline is thought to have inspired Chillingworth's misshapen body?

In the novel, the outward man reflects the condition of the heart.

Across which years is The Scarlet Letter set in the Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony?

That places the story a generation after the colony's founding and decades before the Salem witch trials Hawthorne's ancestor judged.

Which critic and friend of Hawthorne first approached the publisher Fields about printing the book?

Sophia Hawthorne later cited Whipple's role to rebut Fields's 'absurd boast' that he alone got the book published.

Which Catholic convert complained that Hawthorne did not understand Christianity, confession and remorse?

The Church Review and Ecclesiastical Register likewise concluded the author 'perpetrates bad morals'.

For how much did a signed first printing of the March 1850 edition sell at auction?

An unsigned copy was valued at around $12,500 in 2014; the first mechanised run of 2,500 had sold out within ten days.