In The Limited Editions Club Newsletter, George Macy announced the club's edition of the Hawthorne classic, The Scarlet Letter: "Although this fine book is generally considered one of the ten greatest classics of American literature, you are in December 1941 receiving a copy of the first important illustrated edition of this fine book!" Macy dismissed Angelo's and Dwiggins' twentieth century editions as more design than illustration oriented.

The Club's edition was illustrated by Henry Varnum Poor. Born in 1888 in Chapman Kansas, Poor studied at Leland Stanford Junior University, then in London under Walter Sickert and in Paris at the Academie Julien. A teacher of drawing and painting at Stanford University, Poor worked in several media. As Poor had painted New England scenes, Macy thought him an ideal illustrator for The Scarlet Letter. Poor created 49 Lithographs on stone for the edition in the shop of George C. Miller of New York.