Perhaps his first collection of stories, "Twice-Told Tales", was printed in scarlet letters?
But he continued to write 
short stories and sketches and in 1837 collected them into the volume Twice-Told 
Tales,... [DOC] [TLE] Nathaniel Hawthorne, American Novelist - Celebrate Boston [PAR] His first book, Fanshawe, a novel, was issued in 1826, but so poor was its 
success ... and wrote his famous book The Scarlet Letter, which was published in 
1850.