Elizabeth Pain
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Elizabeth Pain, sometimes spelled Elizabeth Paine or Elisabeth Payne, was a settler in colonial Boston who was brought to trial after the death of her child. She was acquitted of the murder charge but
Elizabeth Pain's gravestone in King's Chapel Burying Ground in Boston, Massachusetts
Hester Prynne
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Hester Prynne is the protagonist of Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1850 novel The Scarlet Letter. She is portrayed as a woman condemned by her Puritan neighbors for having a child out of wedlock. The character
Elizabeth Pain
…to some writers and by popular tradition, aspects of Pain's life and her gravestone are considered an inspiration for the life and grave of character Hester Prynne in the novel The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Pain was a spinster who had a child out of wedlock, considered evidence of illegal fornication…
"Hester Prynne & Pearl before the stocks", an illustration by Mary Hallock Foote from an 1878 edition of The Scarlet Letter