Which Editions Of The Scarlet Letter Include Hawthorne'S Notes?

I’m a bit of a book-hound, so when someone asks about Hawthorne’s notes I immediately think of hunting for firsts and facsimiles. The core fact is simple: Hawthorne’s own extra-text material is primarily the introductory essay 'The Custom-House,' which appears in the original 1850 printing of 'The Scarlet Letter' and is included in most complete reprints. What trips people up is the abundance of editorial notes added later — teachers’ editions, annotated paperbacks, and scholarly texts add footnotes and context that are not Hawthorne’s.

If your goal is to read what Hawthorne himself left in print, get an edition that explicitly lists 'The Custom-House' or a facsimile of the first edition. If you want Hawthorne’s marginal notes or manuscript variants, look for a critical scholarly edition or library facsimile; many university presses and library collections will point you to those. Happy hunting — I love finding a copy that has the intro and the old publisher’s page intact.

I still get excited flipping through the front matter of older novels, and with 'The Scarlet Letter' that excitement usually lands on 'The Custom-House' — it’s Hawthorne’s real voice outside the story, and most editions that aim to be complete include it. If someone asks which editions include Hawthorne’s notes, I tell them to distinguish between two things: (1) Hawthorne’s own prefatory writing (chiefly 'The Custom-House'), and (2) editor-added notes or manuscript material that later scholars publish. Many modern academic editions include both the original introduction and a scholarly apparatus explaining textual variants and context.

Good places to start are established critical editions and reputable paperbacks: look up editions from series that advertise "annotated" or "critical edition.' For classroom or study use, 'Norton Critical Edition' or university press editions typically carry both Hawthorne’s prefatory material and detailed notes. Penguin and Oxford editions often include helpful editorial notes and introductions too. If you want Hawthorne’s working notes or marginalia, though, you’ll likely need a scholarly critical edition or a facsimile of the manuscript, or to consult special collections at major libraries — those are the places that reproduce his actual scribbles rather than just explaining the text.

If you want the stuff Nathaniel Hawthorne actually put into the book himself, the key thing to look for is his front piece 'The Custom-House' — that was part of the original 1850 publication of 'The Scarlet Letter'. The very first printing by Ticknor, Reed, and Fields contains Hawthorne's prefatory material and his framing essay; most faithful reproductions and facsimiles of the first edition will include it. Beyond that, Hawthorne didn’t leave a lot of explanatory footnotes attached to the novel itself the way a modern author might annotate a text, so when people talk about "Hawthorne’s notes" they often mean either his introductory material or marginalia and manuscript scraps that later editors publish.

If you’re shopping for a modern book that contains Hawthorne’s own words plus useful editorial apparatus, check the table of contents or front matter for 'The Custom-House' and for sections titled something like "Textual Notes," "Appendix," or "Prefatory Material." Scholarly editions and facsimiles will flag these clearly; popular classroom copies sometimes omit the longer introduction, so it’s worth verifying before you buy. I usually keep a small checklist when I’m hunting: publisher, inclusion of 'The Custom-House', and whether the edition reproduces the original title page or printing notes — those little things tell you whether you’re getting Hawthorne’s own additions or later editorial commentary.

This discussion is making me realize how much the 'paratext'—the introductions, notes, prefaces—shapes our reception of a classic. We're never really reading just Hawthorne. We're reading Hawthorne filtered through an editor's decisions. The editor chooses which historical facts to highlight, which themes to underscore in the introduction. So asking for an edition with Hawthorne's notes is, in a way, a desire to get closer to the author's pure intent, to bypass later interpretations. It's a cool quest. But even his own preface, 'The Custom-House,' is a crafted piece of writing, not an off-the-cuff note. The artist is always curating what we see.