The Scarlet Letter

Name: The Scarlet Letter
Brand: Blackstone Audiobooks
Availability: InStock
Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne
ISBN: 9798228745193

Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne

Narrator: Jenny Hoops

Unabridged: 10 hr 35 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Spoken Realms

Published: 12/02/2025

Categories: Fiction, Classic, Religious

Synopsis

Hester Prynne has been marked as an outcast from the society of colonial Boston for the sin of bearing a child out of wedlock. Her punishment? When she is released from jail, she must endure public shaming at the pillory with her baby. And then—worse yet—she is forced to spend the rest of her life wearing a red letter “A” on her breast, to mark her as an Adulterer. Although compelled by the puritanical town fathers to wear the scarlet letter, Hester refuses to name the baby’s father. She spends the next seven lonely years working as a seamstress and enduring the humiliation of being scorned by the good people of Boston, all the while raising her daughter Pearl to be an independent, bold little girl.The darkly mysterious Roger Chillingworth arrives in town and proceeds to befriend the young preacher. He promises to cure the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale of the illness that is slowly killing him. But who are these two men, and how are they connected to Hester Prynne and little Pearl?Nathaniel Hawthorne’s tale of punishment and reconciliation examines the concepts of sin, guilt, and pride. He entwines moral and spiritual issues with the drama and plot twists of a crime novel, in a story that is as compelling to modern listeners as to the original readers of 1850.Narrated by Jenny Hoops, this is a fresh and lively narration of an enduring classic tale.

About Nathaniel Hawthorne

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) is considered to be one of the greatest American authors of the nineteenth century. He was born in Salem, Massachusetts, and made his ambition to be a writer while still a teenager. He graduated from Bowdoin College in Maine, where the poet Longfellow was also a student, and spent several years traveling in New England and writing short stories before his best known novel, The Scarlet Letter, was published in 1850. His writing was not at first financially rewarding, and he worked as measurer and surveyor in the Boston and Salem Custom Houses. In 1853 he was sent to Liverpool as American consul and then lived in Italy before returning to the United States in 1860.

About Jenny Hoops

Jenny Hoops is a versatile audiobook narrator. With degrees in psychology and biology, she relishes science-related nonfiction and complex whodunnit fiction. Jenny loves acting, and excels at many accents, including American (Standard, Midwest, New England, Southern, Texas, West Coast), Canadian (French and English), British (RP, Cockney), Spanish, Italian, and German. Her nonfiction work includes biographies as well as current events and news. Jenny’s varied career: environment inspector, event coordinator, motivational speaker, soccer mom, and now narrator. In her spare time, she visits nursing homes with her friendly dog, and cheers for her sons at biathlon races. Jenny lives in rural Alberta, Canada, and records from a professionally equipped home studio.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Sarah on July 22, 2016

Hester walked across the room. She stepped upon her left foot, her right foot, and then her left foot again. One wonders, why doth she, in this instance of walking across the room, begin her journey upon the left foot and not the right? Could it be her terrible sin, that the devil informeth the left......more

Goodreads review by Werner on May 07, 2008

Actually, I've read this book twice, the first time when I was in high school. Reading it again after some thirty years, I was amazed at the amount of meaning I'd missed the first time! Most modern readers don't realize (and certainly aren't taught in school) that Hawthorne --as his fiction, essays a......more

Goodreads review by Sean Barrs on March 04, 2017

"Behold, verily, there is the women of the Scarlet Letter; and, of a truth, moreover, there is the likeness of the scarlet letter running alongside her” Let’s talk a little bit about self-fulfilling prophecy. If an entire community, and religious sect, brand a girl’s mother as a sinner, whether ju......more

Goodreads review by Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽ on July 12, 2020

Maybe 2.5 stars if I were just rating this on how much I actually enjoyed reading it. The 40 page Custom-House introduction was pure pain to plow through, no lie, and there are a lot of slow spots where Hawthorne gets hung up in the details. But. 5 stars for the richness of Hawthorne's language, the......more

Goodreads review by Emily May on August 18, 2012

So I finally got to find out for myself what the majority of American high-schoolers are subjected to, and while I see the importance of a story like this and the ideas it presents in 1850, I think the subject matter is both outdated and irrelevant today. One might, of course, choose to point out th......more