Book description
Arthur Miller's classic parable of mass hysteria draws a chilling
parallel between the Salem witch-hunt of 1692 - 'one of the strangest
and most awful chapters in human history' - and the McCarthyism which
gripped America in the 1950s. The story of how the small community of
Salem is stirred into madness by superstition, paranoia and malice,
culminating in a violent climax, is a savage attack on the evils of
mindless persecution and the terrifying power of false accusations.
Arthur Miller was born in New York City in 1915 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
. He has also written 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 most
recent works include a memoir, Timebends
(1987), and the plays The Ride Down Mt. Morgan
(1991), The Last Yankee
(1993), Broken Glass
(1993), which won the Olivier Award for Best Play of the London Season,
and Mr. Peter's Connections
(1998). He has twice won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, and
in 1949 he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize.
