The Crucible: A Play in Four Acts.

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 American anti-communist purges led by Senator McCarthy 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.

A depiction of innocent men and women destroyed by malicious rumour, The Crucible is also a powerful indictment of McCarthyism and the 'frontier mentality' of Cold War America.

• Author
• Arthur Miller

• Format
• paperback

• Pages
• 144

• Series
• Penguin Modern Classics

• Publisher
• Penguin Classics

• Language
• english

• ISBN
• 978-0-14-118255-1

• EAN
• 9780141182551

• Release date
• 2000