The Scarlet Letter Author:Nathaniel Hawthorn In Boston, a Puritan community at the time, a woman named Hester Prynne has been waiting for her husband to arrive from England. When he doesn't, she assumes he is dead and moves on, bearing a child. The town, however, accuses her of adultery and forces her to wear a scarlet "A" on her chest because she won't reveal the child's father. — Chilling... more » and unsettling, Hawthorne's story is a masterwork of social communtary that is dramatic and relevant today as when it was first written.« less