The Scarlet Letter is a classic American novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne set in 17th-century Puritan Massachusetts. It is subtitled A Romance, but it is a serious psychological and moral study rather than a love story in the modern sense. The story centers on Hester Prynne, a woman who gives birth to a child after an affair and is forced by her Puritan community to wear a scarlet "A" (for adultery) on her clothing as public shame. She refuses to reveal the identity of the child's father and endures social isolation while raising her daughter, Pearl. The hidden father is Arthur Dimmesdale, a respected minister who secretly struggles with guilt and inner torment while maintaining his public reputation. His psychological conflict becomes one of the central tensions of the novel.