Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter is one of the best examples of his work. He worked nine hours a day for six months to churn out this nice piece of literature, possibly one of America's greatest novels. The writing of this book marked a phase shift in Hawthorne's life. The end of the short-story phase and the real beginning (his first novel, Fanshaw was a failure) of the novel phase was an inevitable consequence spawned through The Scarlet Letter. During his novel phase he wrote two other books, neither of which could surpass The Scarlet Letter. The Scarlet Letter is often called a "romance" about Puritan America. Taking place in The Massachusetts Bay Colony, the story unfolds over a time span of about seven years. Hawthorne's ancestry in the Puritan era (one of his ancestors was a judge in the Salem witchcraft trials) greatly influenced his book, and he was very convicted about his Puritan heritage, which is very evident throughout the novel. …
