"The Scarlet Letter" is a novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne, published in 1850. It is set in the Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony during the years 1642 to 1649 and tells the story of Hester Prynne, who conceives a daughter with a man to whom she is not married and then struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity. As punishment, she must wear a scarlet letter A (for "adultery") on her clothes. The novel explores themes of legalism, sin, and guilt, and contains a number of religious and historic allusions. The story begins in seventeenth-century Boston, then a Puritan settlement, and follows Hester as she tries to rebuild her life while facing public shaming and ostracism. The novel has been described as a masterwork and is considered a classic work of American literature.