Everyone thinks they know what the Puritans were like, and a big part of the reason why they think they know this can be found in this book, The Scarlet Letter .

Since Nathaniel Hawthorne was a New Englander who wrote back in the old days, we sometimes assume that he learned about Puritanism by looking out his window. But the book is set in 1642, and was published in 1850-over two centuries later. While Hawthorne was descended from Puritans-his great, great grandfather was the only judge in the Salem witch trials who did not repent of what he had done-that world was long gone by Hawthorne’s day. Perhaps his ancestry is where Hawthorne acquired his somewhat morbid turn of mind. -From Douglas Wilson’s guide

The Canon Classics Worldview Guides provide an aesthetic and thematic Christian perspective on the most definitive and daunting works of Western Literature. The Worldview Guides focus on the big picture (both the good and the bad) without neglecting the details. Each Worldview Guide is a friendly literary coach-and a treasure map, and a compass, and a key-to help teachers, parents, and students appreciate, critique, and master the classics.

The bite-size WGs are divided into these ten sections (with some variation due to genre): Introduction, The World Around, About the Author, What Other Notables Said, Setting, Characters, & Argument, Worldview Analysis, Quotables, 21 Significant Questions & Answers, and Further Discussion & Review.