Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Scarlet Letter Illustrated Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Scarlet Letter is a gothic romance, not a historical novel. It takes place at a recognizable place and time, the Massachusetts Bay Colony during the 17th century, but many of its details are fanciful rather than accurate. For example, the governor's house, as Hawthorne describes it, has a brilliantly decorated exterior, which would have been unlikely in Puritan Boston.