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Title: The Scarlet Letter

Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne

Narrator: Flo Gibson

Format: Unabridged

Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins

Language: English

Release date: 12-16-99

Publisher: Recorded Books

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 169 votes

Genres: Fiction, Historical

Publisher's Summary:

This powerful story of passion, adultery, honor, and repression caused a tremendous controversy in 1850 when it was published, because of its provocative subject matter. Set in Puritan New England, the novel begins with Hester Prynne, a young woman with an illegitimate baby daughter, leaving prison to face her scornful townsfolk. Forced to wear a scarlet letter "A" to remind people of her adultery, Hester obstinately holds her head high and refuses to reveal the father of her child. In the process she cuts herself off from society - and her lover. Why won't Hester reveal her secret? The answer has much to do with guilt, passion, and repentance - timeless themes within a splendid story that has remained a literary classic for over a century.

Editorial Reviews:

Flo Gibson, the grande dame of audiobook performance, lends her renowned voice to Nathaniel Hawthornes masterful treatise on sin, knowledge, and consequence. Gibson, known for her fluid diction and deep, soothing timbre, is regarded by many as the most versatile voice in audiobook history. Here Gibson whisks listeners away to a 17th-century New England Puritan village. Gibson plays Hester Prynne - the ignoble adulteress shunned by her community - and her secret lover, the sickly Reverend Dimmesdale, besot by guilt from his carnal transgression. Prynne is forsaken by her former husband, a jealous doctor, and left alone to raise her mischievous child, the impish Pearl. As Prynne and Dimmesdale reckon with knowledge of their sin, the puritanical villagers rigid morality is called into question.

Critic Reviews:

"A masterpiece." (Henry James)

Members Reviews:

Unbearable quality recording

This is by far the worst audible program I have purchased. It is a wonderful story; however, this production is utterly unintelligible. I listened to the sample before purchasing the title and thought it was tolerable. It was nearly impossible to understand the narrator much of the time due to the horrible quality. I have purchased other books such as this (originally recorded in 1 and upgraded to 2) and have been able to understand them fine.

The story is wonderful, but utterly not worth trying to wade through this awful recording. At the time I purchased it this was the only unabridged version. I urge you to skip this one and try the other.

Unintelligible

This book is so ridiculously hard to understand in my car that I couldn't listen to it.

The reading of the Scarlet Letter

The story was read thoroughly. The change in the readers voice to signify the different characters was a bit of a distraction.

not the right book

was using this to help me understand and used this one and realized was a totally different book from mine

Great book; narration a challenge

How could the performance have been better?

The narrator puts too much effort into the voices of the characters, and makes them either pathetic (Hester and Dimmesdale), laughable (Chillingsworth), or cloying (Pearl). I don't believe any of it is supported by the text.

Any additional comments?

The narrator's talents were well suited, I thought, to the long introduction concerning the custom house. It's a chapter first-time readers might do well to skip, although, once worked through, it's a wonderful piece of writing, and the narrator does a good job capturing its humor, which is possible to miss on the page.