The Scarlet Letter (Annotated): Student Edition

This annotated student edition features:
- Full original text, plus annotations and summaries written by a certified high school English teacher
- Annotations of literary devices, biblical allusions and historical accounts to help you understand while you read the original text
- Identifications of people and places not easily understood by the reader allowing you to instantly understand the context of Hawthorne's writing
- Study Guide/Summary for each chapter to check for understanding, or get you through that important quiz you forgot about
- Key vocabulary words in bold print you can use the kindle dictionary to quickly define for understanding or to complete an assignment

Oh No! You've been assigned a book to read that is over 150 years old! What was Nathaniel Hawthorne even talking about? People don't talk like this anymore!

Use this annotated student edition to decipher exactly what Nathaniel Hawthorne meant, and impress your English teacher with your spot-on interpretations.

Have time to read the entire book? Use the annotations to understand the deeper meaning of the original text.

In a hurry? Read the chapter summaries to get you through those pesky reading quizzes.

Need help with the archaic vocabulary? Use the bold text and Kindle dictionary to quickly find the definitions and get back to doing what you truly love- nothing.

No matter what type of student you are, this edition will get you through your assigned reading of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.

Your teacher asks you for an example of a biblical allusion, just look for some italicized text, and Voila! You're assignment is done.

Sample annotations and identifications in the original text:

Biblical Allusion: These old gentlemen€"seated, like Matthew (the apostle in the Bible, writer of a gospel; was once a tax official prior to his calling to Jesus€ ministry) at the receipt of custom, but not very liable to be summoned thence, like him, for apostolic errands€"were Custom-House officers.

Identification: To detect, as one or another addressed me, the tremor of a voice which, in long-past days, had been wont to bellow through a speaking-trumpet, hoarsely enough to frighten Boreas (Greek god of the north wind) himself to silence.

Events adapted from Hawthorne's life: Such were some of the people with whom I now found myself connected. I took it in good part, at the hands of Providence (divine guidance), that I was thrown into a position so little akin to my past habits; and set myself seriously to gather from it whatever profit was to be had. After my fellowship of toil and impracticable schemes with the dreamy brethren of Brook Farm (communal farm in West Roxbury, MA based on transcendentalism. Like the narrator, Hawthorne was an investor, but later left); after living for three years within the subtle influence of an intellect like Emerson's (Ralph Waldo Emerson: transcendentalist poet); after those wild, free days on the Assabeth (river West of Boston, MA), indulging fantastic speculations, beside our fire of fallen boughs, with Ellery Channing (transcendentalist poet);