Name: The Scarlet Letter
ISBN: 9781927925331

Crystal Silvermoon

- A powerful tale of forbidden love, shame, and revenge comes to life in Manga Classics: The Scarlet Letter. Faithfully adapted by Crystal Chan from the original novel, this new edition features stunning artwork by SunNeko Lee (Manga Classics: Les Miserables) which will give old and new readers alike a fresh insight into the Nathaniel Hawthorne's tragic saga of Puritan America. - Manga Classics editions feature classic stories, faithfully adapted and illustrated in manga style, and available in both hardcover and softcover editions. Proudly presented by UDON Entertainment and Morpheus Publishing.

The Scarlet Letter

Kelsey Lynn

This was a beautifully illustrated telling of the classic by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Initially I was concerned about losing content to make it work for the manga application, but this wasn't the case. It was thoughtfully done and true to the original. The art fit and helped visualize the story, I loved how everything was in the traditional manga black and white, but the A itself was always red. I was truly surprised at the quality of this and how enjoyable it was to read. As a child the Scarlet Letter was so daunting, and the subject matter (at the time) boring. Had I had something like this, I would've appreciated the story much sooner in life. It's a great way to get people reading the classics without losing any of the content. 
I look forward to reading other Manga Classics.

Karolina

Hester Prynne is a young woman, who's one mistake changed her life. After having an affair and a child, she's put in prison. Moreover, she's forced to wear a scarlet letter A on her breast as a punishment, to remind everyone about her sin. While she's in the prison, she was visited by her husband. However, he's not trying to avenge himself on her, he seeks a vengeance on the mysterious man, she doesn't want to reveal a name. With the years her life gets easier, however, it's not getting easier for a father of Pearl. 

I always wanted to read The Scarlet Letter, but never had much time to do it. That's why I was happy when I found this graphic novel. I read few of the books from the Manga Classics series. They are a nice shorter vision of the books. However, so many explanations of the characters were lacking and I feel like I need to read the book to understand characters. This graphic novel motivated me even more to read it, as it showed me how amazing is this story.

I have a real appreciation for artists who make illustrated tellings of classic stories. I am a person who appreciates classics and has many of them of my TBR. But in reality I struggle to find the time, patience, and mind-space for ye old language to actually tick them off. And so I have a deep thankfulness to those which produce easy to digest editions of these classics. 

I have not read the original story of The Scarlet Letter, but I do have a general understanding of what the story entails. Because of this I will not comment on the accuracy of the retelling.

Overall the book was easy to follow and understand (I did not need to interpret ye old language). I thought the illustrations and style, while quite traditionally manga-esque, did well at telling the the story. The emotions of such classic storytelling depicted in such a manga way (e.g. the shadowed expressions, Chillingworth depicted with a serpent during most morally evil moments) was interesting and unique, and honestly I thought it portrayed the story fine. 

There wasn't anything standout-ish to me though. The illustration style was typical, the simplistic classic story retelling was typical, and while I quickly learnt of a classic story I didn't take away much else. But I guess this is what the artist's aimed to achieve. A classic retelling of a age-old story with little creative interpretation.

Note: I received this graphic book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to Netgallery and the adaptive artists, Nathaniel Hawthorne, SunNeko Lee, Crystal S Chan, and Stacy King!

The Scarlet Letter

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