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America’s first psychological novel, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is a dark tale of love, crime, and revenge set in colonial New England. It revolves around a single, forbidden act of passion that forever alters the lives of three members of a small Puritan community: Hester Prynne, an ardent and fierce woman who bears the punishment of her sin in humble silence; the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, a respected public figure who is inwardly tormented by long-hidden guilt; and the malevolent Roger Chillingworth, Hester’s husband—a man who seethes with an Ahab-like lust for vengeance.

The landscape of this classic novel is uniquely American, but the themes it explores are universal—the nature of sin, guilt, and penitence, the clash between our private and public selves, and the spiritual and psychological cost of living outside society. Constructed with the elegance of a Greek tragedy, The Scarlet Letter brilliantly illuminates the truth that lies deep within the human heart.



Nancy Stade is trained as a lawyer and has worked in the federal government and the private sector. She currently lives in Mexico, where she is working on a novel.

Young Jim Hawkins lives a quiet life as the son of an innkeeper. This all changes when an ancient sailor takes up lodging at the inn. Jim is both horrified and fascinated by the captain's bloody stories. But when the old man dies without paying his bill, Jim must search the sailor's one possession, a large sea chest, for payment. In doing so, he unknowingly pockets an old map from the chest. But Jim is not the only one interested in the sea chest, and he has to flee when a group of cutthroats shows up to ransack the few possessions of the old sailor.The family doctor recognizes the map as the key to a fortune, which commences a Caribbean treasure hunt. With the pirates only steps behind, Jim races to reach Treasure Island. Seventeen set sail, but how many will return? Complete with peg-legs, parrots, pieces-of-eight, and the original Long John Silver, this novel launched Stevenson on his long and fascinating writing career and marked the beginning of the pirate genre.

 

Great Expectations, described by G. K. Chesterton as a “study in human weakness and the slow human surrender,” may be called Charles Dickens’s finest moment in a remarkably illustrious literary career.

In an overgrown churchyard, a grizzled convict springs upon an orphan named Pip. The convict terrifies the young boy and threatens to kill him unless Pip helps further his escape. Later, Pip finds himself in the ruined garden where he meets the bitter and crazy Miss Havisham and her foster child Estella, with whom he immediately falls in love. After a secret benefactor gives him a fortune, Pip moves to London, where he cultivates great expectations for a life which would allow him to discard his impoverished beginnings and socialize with the idle upper class. As Pip struggles to become a gentleman and is tormented endlessly by the beautiful Estella, he slowly learns the truth about himself and his illusions.

Written in the last decade of his life, Great Expectations reveals Dickens’s dark attitudes toward Victorian society, its inherent class structure, and its materialism. Yet this novel persists as one of Dickens’s most popular. Richly comic and immensely readable, Great Expectations overspills with vividly drawn characters, moral maelstroms, and the sorrow and pity of love.



Radhika Jones is a doctoral candidate in English and comparative literature at Columbia University and the managing editor of Grand Street magazine.

This landmark anniversary edition contains a selection of Twain's hard-to-find letters and notes expressing his always-engaging opinions on the publication of Tom Sawyer.