The red letter A on her dress marks young mother Hester Prynne among her Puritan neighbors, who demand to know who fathered her child. Rumors swirl, but the shunned and shamed Hester keeps her secret-and his-for years, until a guilt-ridden confession reveals the truth, with unexpected consequences. Set in seventeenth-century Massachusetts, Hawthorne’s masterwork was originally subtitled "a romance", though its themes include the limits of law, the power of religion, and the nature of sin.