Books

Boston: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, 1850. First Edition. First and only printing, with the contents listed on pp.iii-iv and without the preface added in the second edition. Octavo (19cm). Blindstamped brown cloth, titled in gilt on spine, pale yellow endpapers; iv,322pp. Title page printed in two colors. With Hawthorne's signature clipped from a Salem Custom-House document, and tipped in facing title page. Bookplate of Francis H. Underwood to front pastedown. Former dealer's pencil notes to front free e.p. A skillfully rebacked copy, with original backstrip laid down; expert conservation to board corners; straight, sound, and complete, the text quite fresh; Very Good. An appealing copy, despite the repairs, with Hawthorne's signature clipped from a customs document. Hawthorne famously wrote the novel while working at the Salem Custom House, and opened it with a frame narrative in which the narrator discovers the preserved scarlet A itself. A significant association copy, bearing the…

The Scarlet Letter, published in 1850, is considered one of Nathaniel Hawthorne's most famous works. It is a historical romance set in the puritanical Massachusetts Bay Colony during the mid-17th century.

First editions feature a grey cloth cover with gilt lettering.