Books

London: Methuen & Co. Ltd, 1920. First edition thus of Hawthorne’s masterpiece. Quarto, bound in full morocco by Bennett, elaborate gilt tooling to the spine, with scarlet leather onlay of the letter A on the front panel, gilt turn-ins and inner dentelles, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt, illustrated with 31 mounted color plates by Hugh Thomson. In fine condition. Housed in a linen slip case and chemise box. An exceptional example from The Bennett Book Studios, a fine book bindery in New York City established in the late 1920s by bookman and binder Whitman Bennett. From the library of bibliophile and Grolier Club member David Allen Fraser. The most memorable and original aspect of The Scarlet Letter lies in Hawthorne's portrait of Hester Prynne, who has been described as "the first true heroine of American fiction", a woman whose experience evokes the biblical fate of Eve. Hawthorne's achievement is to make her passion noble, her defiance heartbreaking and her…

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.