Brenda Wineapple, the author of the essay you’ve just read, has also written the most authoritative biography of Hawthorne to date: Hawthorne: A Life (A.A. Knopf, 2003).

You may find this interesting as well:

Bosco, Ronald A., and Jillmarie Murphy, (Eds). Hawthorne in His Own Time: A Biographical Chronicle of His Life, Drawn from Recollections, Interviews, and Memoirs by Family, Friends, and Associates. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, c2007.

General reference works for Hawthorne, his life and works:

Gale, Robert L. A Nathaniel Hawthorne Encyclopedia. New York: Greenwood Press, 1991.

Millington, Richard (Ed). The Cambridge Companion to Nathaniel Hawthorne. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Reynolds, Larry J. A Historical Guide to Nathaniel Hawthorne. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

The best available texts of The Scarlet Letter are:

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, and Leland S. Person (Ed). The Scarlet Letter and Other Writings. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., c2005.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, and Ross C. Murfin (Ed). The Scarlet Letter: Complete,
Authoritative Text with Biographical Background and Critical History Plus Essays from Five Contemporary Critical Perspectives with Introductions and Bibliographies. Boston: Bedford Books of St. Martin's Press, c1991.

As you can imagine, there are a wealth of works on Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. For critical evaluations of the novel, see these recent books:

Muirhead, Kimberly Free. Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter: A Critical Resource Guide and Comprehensive Bibliography of Literary Criticism, 1950-2000. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, c2004.

Scharnhorst, Gary (Ed). The Critical Response to Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. New York: Greenwood Press, 1992.

For help in using the novel in the classroom, look at:

Johnson, Claudia D. Understanding the Scarlet Letter: A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historical Documents. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995.

If you’re interested in learning more about Hawthorne’s circle, look at these books:

Capper, Charles. Margaret Fuller: An American Romantic Life. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.

Cheever, Susan. American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau; Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006.

Stern, Madeleine B. The Life of Margaret Fuller. New York: Greenwood Press, 1991.

Von Mehren, Joan. Minerva and the Muse: A Life of Margaret Fuller. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, c1994.

Internet

For more background on Nathaniel Hawthorne, head straight to the “Hawthorne in Salem” Website created by the House of Seven Gables Historic Site, Salem Maritime National Historic Site, and Peabody Essex Museum:

http://www.hawthorneinsalem.org/Introduction.html

“Literature” segment has sections on the Custom House chapter, Women in Hawthorne, Faith and Religion, and other relevant topics:

http://www.hawthorneinsalem.org/Literature/Introduction.html

Scholars’ Forum has full texts of many helpful lectures, essays, maps, and a timeline:

http://www.hawthorneinsalem.org/ScholarsForum/
Lectures_and_Articles_Complete_List.html

While the Hawthorne in Salem Website doesn’t have an “Education” section to help classroom teachers, James Madison University in Virginia comes to our rescue with the wonderful Internet School Library Media Center's “Nathaniel Hawthorne Teacher’s Resource File”. This one is so good you won’t believe it – links to online biographies of the author (ones that you can depend on), texts of Hawthorne’s works on the Internet, links to lesson plans – and really good ones, too:

http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/hawthorne.htm