INTRODUCTORY NOTE. THE SCARLET LETTER. "THE Scarlet Letter" was the first sustained work of fiction completed by Hawthorne after he had be come known to the public through the "Twice-Told Tales; and was the first among his books which attained popularity. He had meanwhile published "Grandfather's Chair," for children, and his "Mosses from an Old Manse." But it was not until he once more took up his residence in Salem, while occupying the post of surveyor at the Custom House of that port, that he began to hear as he expressed it to a frienda romance growling in his mind.” This romance was the now world-famous one, which is again offered to readers in the present volume. It was begun some time in the winter of 1849-50, after the author had been deprived of his official situation. He completed the book February 3, 1850, and on the following day wrote to Horatio Bridge: 66 "I finished my book only yesterday, one end being in the press in Boston, while the other was in my head here in Salem; so that, as you see, the story is at least fourteen miles long. . . . Some portions of the book are powerfully written; but my writings do not, nor ever will, appeal to the broadest class of sympa thies, and therefore will not attain a very wide popu |