# The Scarlet Letter

**Author:** Nathaniel Hawthorne
**Lexile:** 1420L
**Grade range:** Grades 10–12
**Age range:** 15–18
**First published:** 1850
**Page count:** 238
**Genre:** Historical Fiction
**ISBN-13:** `9780142437261`
**ISBN-10:** `0142437263`
**Canonical URL:** https://readinglist.school/book/the-scarlet-letter
**License:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) — please credit ReadingList.school when citing.

## About this book

In 17th-century Puritan Boston, Hester Prynne is sentenced to wear a scarlet letter A for adultery; the father of her daughter Pearl is hidden. Hawthorne's symbol-dense novel is the canonical 11th-grade American Literature text and a near-universal AP Lit text.

## Themes

- sin and guilt
- public shame vs private conscience
- Puritan society
- identity and hypocrisy
- womanhood
- symbolism

## Content notes

- adultery
- public shaming
- child-rearing in hardship

Common Sense Media age recommendation: 14+

## Where this book is assigned

### AP English Literature & Composition

- **recommended** · 11th grade — [source: AP Lit representative text](https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-english-literature-and-composition)

### Common Core State Standards (ELA)

- **recommended** · 11th grade — [source: CCSS ELA Appendix B, grades 11-CCR exemplar](https://achievethecore.org/page/2699)
- **required** · 11th grade · Massachusetts — [source: MA ELA Framework — paired with Puritan New England history](https://www.doe.mass.edu/)

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