It was Hawthorne's first intention to make the romance one of a volume of several short stories, because, as he remarks to Mr. Fields:
"A hunter loads his gun with a bullet and several buckshot; and, following his sagacious example, it was my purpose to conjoin the one long story with half a dozen shorter ones, so that, failing to kill the public outright with my biggest and heaviest lump of lead, I might have other chances with the smaller bits, individually and in the aggregate." But this plan was finally changed and it was decided to publish the story alone. There was then some talk about a title for it. "In this latter event" (the event of publishing alone), "it appears to me that the only proper title for the book would be 'The Scarlet Letter,' for 'The Custom House' is merely introductory ..." And so it was decided.
"If 'The Scarlet Letter' is to be the title," he asked Mr. Fields, "would it not be well to print it on the title-page in red ink? I am not quite sure about the good taste of so doing, but it would certainly be piquant and appropriate, and, I think, attractive to the great gull whom we are endeavoring to circumvent." The reader might ask the bibliophile if the red title line, for it was printed in that way, really did have anything to do with the circumventing which eventually took place.
On February 4, 1850, Hawthorne wrote to Horatio Bridges:
"I finished my book yesterday, one end being in the press in Boston, while the other was in my head here in Salem; so that, as you see, the story is at least fourteen miles long."
The book appeared about March 16. As Mr. George Parsons Lathrop points out, there seems to have been no expectation of a very successful sale, in spite of Mr. Fields's enthusiasm; but to the surprise of all, the whole issue was exhausted in ten days. A second edition, with a preface dated March 30, was soon published, making, with the first, a total number of five thousand copies. All these were printed by Metcalf & Company of Cambridge. The third issue was entirely reset and electrotyped, and numbered 307 pages.
The second issue, beside the preface, shows numerous changes, especially in words. Among these the bookseller's favorite catch-word "reduplicate" (p. 21, l. 20) was changed to "repudiate." In late copies of the stereotyped form, this word was changed to "resuscitate."
Duodecimo.
Collation: vi, 322 pp.