# The Crucible - Paperback

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by **Arthur Miller** (Author), **Christopher W. E. Bigsby** (Introduction by)

**A haunting examination of groupthink and mass hysteria in a rural community**

A Penguin Classic

"I believe that the reader will discover here the essential nature of one of the strangest and most awful chapters in human history," Arthur Miller wrote in an introduction to _The Crucible_, his classic play about the witch-hunts and trials in seventeenth-century Salem, Massachusetts. Based on historical people and real events, Miller's drama is a searing portrait of a community engulfed by hysteria.

In the rigid theocracy of Salem, rumors that women are practicing witchcraft galvanize the town's most basic fears and suspicions; and when a young girl accuses Elizabeth Proctor of being a witch, self-righteous church leaders and townspeople insist that Elizabeth be brought to trial. The ruthlessness of the prosecutors and the eagerness of neighbor to testify against neighbor brilliantly illuminate the destructive power of socially sanctioned violence.

Written in 1953, _The Crucible_ is a mirror Miller uses to reflect the anti-communist hysteria inspired by Senator Joseph McCarthy's "witch-hunts" in the United States. Within the text itself, Miller contemplates the parallels, writing: "Political opposition...is given an inhumane overlay, which then justifies the abrogation of all normally applied customs of civilized behavior. A political policy is equated with moral right, and opposition to it with diabolical malevolence."

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

### Author Biography

**Arthur Miller** (1915-2005) was born in New York City and studied at the University of Michigan. His plays include _All My Sons_ (1947), _Death of a Salesman_ (1949), _The Crucible_ (1953), _A View from the Bridge_ and _A Memory of Two Mondays_ (1955), _After the Fall_ (1963), _Incident at Vichy_ (1964), _The Price_ (1968), _The Creation of the World and Other Business_ (1972) and _The American Clock_ (1980). He also wrote two novels, _Focus_ (1945), and _The Misfits_, which was filmed in 1960, and the text for _In Russia_ (1969), _Chinese Encounters_ (1979), and _In the Country_ (1977), three books of photographs by his wife, Inge Morath. His later work included a memoir, _Timebends_ (1987); the plays _The Ride Down Mt. Morgan_ (1991), _The Last Yankee_ (1993), _Broken Glass_ (1994), and _Mr. Peter's Connections_ (1999); _Echoes Down the Corridor: Collected Essays, 1944-2000_; and _On Politics and the Art of Acting_ (2001). He twice won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, and in 1949 he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Miller was the recipient of the National Book Foundation's 2001 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, the Prince of Asturias Award for Letters in 2002, and the Jerusalem Prize in 2003.

**Christopher Bigsby** is a professor of American Studies at the University of East Anglia. He edited the Penguin Classics editions of Miller's _The Crucible_, _Death of a Salesman_, and _All My Sons_.

**Number of Pages:** 176

**Dimensions:** 0.5 x 7.6 x 5 IN

**Publication Date:** March 25, 2003

**Accelerated Reader:**

**Quiz Name:** Crucible

**Interest Level:** Upper Grades, 9-12

**Reading Level:** 4.9

**Point Value:** 5

## Details

- **Price:** 16.0 USD
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- **Type:** Books
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## Variants

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|---------|-------|-----------|
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- The Crucible - Paperback
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