The Scarlet Letter audiobook Intermediate B2

The Scarlet Letter is an 1850 novel by writer Nathaniel Hawthorne. The work, Hawthorne’s first full-length novel, is a classic of the American Romantic era. More specifically, its treatment of topics like sin, insanity, and the occult make it a work of Dark Romanticism—a movement related to the Gothic genre that includes works by Edgar Allan Poe and Herman Melville. The Scarlet Letter is also a piece of historical fiction; it is set in the early days of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and refers to real historical figures like Governor Richard Bellingham and Reverend John Wilson. This study guide references the 2003 Penguin Classics edition of the work.