University Libraries Promotion and Tenure Recognition

The Pioneer(available in this 1947 reprint) features in its first issue a review of a novel titled The Salem Belle--a review that would have interested Nathaniel Hawthorne. Accordingly, I read the novel, which turned out to be an important, hitherto-unrecognized source for The Scarlet Letter. My presentation and interpretation of this source constitute the third chapter of my recent book on Hawthorne, The Threads of "The Scarlet Letter": A Study of Hawthorne's Transformative Art (U of Delaware P, 2003).