One would think that a book studied for more than 150 years would be unable to hide anything from its readers, but a Penn State professor has proved this idea wrong.

Richard Kopley, an associate professor of English at Penn State's Dubois Campus, was working on his Edgar Allan Poe research when he came across an unfamiliar poem that Poe had reviewed in a literary magazine. The poem, "A Legend of Brittany," struck Kopley as something he had read before in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. Little did he know this connection would later result in his first scholarly book.

"For many years, I taught the correlation between Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart and The Scarlet Letter in my American literature classes, but I never sought out other allusions," Kopley said. "When I came across 'A Legend of Brittany,' I was very excited to explore this other connection."

Upon researching, Kopley came across another book that seemed to show the same linking potential. The Salem Belle: A Tale of 1692, written by an anonymous author seven years beforehand, had a strikingly similar climax to that of The Scarlet Letter, in which a stirring monologue is given to an accusatory and malevolent crowd. There were also many other connections between the two texts, such as a strange mentioning of scaffolding in the monologues.

"Once I came across The Salem Belle: A Tale of 1692 and discovered that Hawthorne would have most likely read it, my next question was why he chose to allude to it in The Scarlet Letter," Kopley said.

What was most difficult in this mystery was figuring out whom the anonymous author of The Salem Belle: A Tale of 1692 was. But after a couple of trips to the libraries at Harvard and Columbia universities, where he read some letters on file, Kopley said he believes he has tracked down the author.

"Ebenezer Wheelwright was a broke publisher and most likely wrote the book without his name to avoid his creditors," Kopley said.

The allusion opened The Scarlet Letter to a myriad of interpretations that Kopley explores in his book, The Threads of the Scarlet Letter: A Study of Hawthorne's Transformative Art.

Robert Caserio, director of the English department at University Park, has read Kopley's book and said it is truly original.

"Kopley took a book that has been studied for over 150 years and still was able to see it anew," Caserio said.

Caserio also said the book is an engaging read and, at times, is a lot like a detective novel.

"Kopley took a very creative way in looking at Hawthorne," Caserio said. "Any scholar interested in Hawthorne will have to read this book."

This past January, Kopley was at Webster's Bookstore Cafe, 128 S. Allen St., for a book signing.

"I have been friends with Richard for a long time and have been getting little snippets of the book for years," Webster's owner Elaine Meder said. "I'm very excited to read it."

Webster's Bookstore is currently selling copies of the book for those interested in reading it before it is taught in a Penn State classroom.