紅字：The Scarlet Letter（英文朗讀版）

　　There could not be a more perfect work of the American imagination than The Scarlet Letter.- D. H. Lawrence"It is beautiful， admirable， extraordinary; it has in the highest degree that merit which I have spoken of as the mark of Hawthorne's best things-an indefinable purity and lightness of conception...One can often return to it; it supports familiarity and has the inexhaustible charm and mystery of great works of art."- Henry JamesThe Scarlet Letter is a work of historical fiction by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne， published in 1850， and was an instant best-seller. It is also one of the first mass-produced books in America.　Set in Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony during the years 1642 to 1649， the novel tells the story of Hester Prynne who conceives a daughter through an affair and then struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity. The book explores themes of legalism， sin， and guilt.　The Scarlet Letter was one of the first mass-produced books in America. It was popular when first published and is considered a classic work today. It inspired numerous film， television， and stage adaptations. Critics have described it as a masterwork and novelist D. H. Lawrence called it a "perfect work of the American imagination".

　　納撒尼爾·霍桑（1804-1864），美國19世紀(jì)后期浪漫主義文學(xué)的重要作家。他的代表作《紅字》一經(jīng)問世，便引起了巨大轟動(dòng)。小說以深邃的主題，象征、隱喻等藝術(shù)手法的運(yùn)用而形成了獨(dú)特的風(fēng)格，其象征手法影響了《白鯨》的作者麥爾維爾、法國的波德萊爾以及現(xiàn)代派文學(xué)的象征主義。此外，霍桑對(duì)美國文學(xué)史上一批卓有成就的作家諸如海明威、菲茲杰拉德、福克納等都產(chǎn)生較大影響。