Reception
The novel's first reviewers expressed mixed views of Dimmesdale. Even some of the first reviewers, among them E. A. Duyckinck, celebrated his character as part of a generally laudatory attitude toward the book. Others were less convinced. Writing in Blackwood's Magazine, Margaret Oliphant deplored what she saw as the novel's unhealthy obsession with sin and guilt. Somewhat similarly, Anne W. Abbott, writing in The North American Review, complained that Dimmesdale was unrealistic because he allowed himself to be swamped by despairing hypocrisy—in short, he did not conform to the stereotypes of a minister.
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