The Market Place

Felix Octavius Carr Darley|Nathaniel Hawthorne

ca. 1884 · Pen and black ink · Drawings and Prints

Darley illustrates Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter, A Romance" (published 1850). His drawing was reproduced in 1879 as the first print in a set of twelve "Compositions in Outline." Set in seventeenth-century Boston, the story explores the consequences of a liason between Hester Prynne and the Puritan pastor Arthur Dimmesdale. When Hester becomes pregnant, she refuses to identify her child's father, is imprisoned, and forced to wear a red letter "A" on her dress (to mark her as an adultress). This image responds to chapter 2, where Hester leaves prison to endure public humiliation on the town scaffold. The text describes women resentful of Hester's beauty, who find her punishment too lenient–figures shown here below the steps. See 14.111.1–.4 for other drawings from the set.

Artist

Felix Octavius Carr Darley|Nathaniel Hawthorne

Date

ca. 1884

Medium

Pen and black ink

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Gift of W. A. White, 1914