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Hawthorne's Dating Problem In "The Scarlet Letter", Charlie Sweet, Hal Blythe
Hawthorne's Dating Problem In "The Scarlet Letter", Charlie Sweet, Hal Blythe
Charlie Sweet
This article explores the dating problem in Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel, The Scarlet Letter. In The Custom House, Hawthorne relates how he discovers several foolscap sheets written by a predecessor, Mr. Surveyor Pue, about Hester Prynne. These six sheets supposedly offer two types of accounts about Hester: aged persons, alive in the time of Pue and from whose oral testimony he had made up his narrative, remembered her, in their youth and those who had heard the tale from contemporary witnesses. A dating problem arises with the first group. Critics concur that historical documents place the events in The Scarlet Letter …