The story of Hester Prynne-found out in adultery, pilloried by her Puritan community, and abandoned, in different ways, by both her partner in sin and her vengeance-seeking husband-possesses a reality heightened by Nathaniel Hawthorne's pure human sympathy and his unmixed devotion to his supposedly fallen but fundamentally innocent heroine. Exploring themes such as community and isolation, innocence and guilt, and secrecy and exposure, Hawthorne brings readers into a world where public and private life are inextricably linked-a reality that heavily influences the actions of the novel's characters. In its moral force and the beauty of its conciliations, The Scarlet Letter rightly deserves its stature as the first great novel written by an American, the novel that established American literature equal to any in the world.