The Scarlet Letter

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

I read this years ago, probably as a school assignment, but I can say that The Scarlet Letter is truly a quality classic that still holds up today. What surprised me most was how much I appreciated the language; it was rich and precise without getting fussy, and how it gives weight to the story’s moral tangle. The pacing is undeniably 19th century, but the prose keeps it moving, and I was drawn in by the atmospheric way Hawthorne builds tension through small, carefully chosen details. It reminded me why this novel endures.