About the Book: The Crucible
This Student Edition of The Crucible is perfect for students of literature and drama and offers an unrivalled guide to Millers classic play. It features an extensive introduction by Susan C. W. Abbotson which includes: a chronology of Millers life and times; a summary of the plot and commentary on the characters, themes, language, context and production history of the play. Together with over twenty questions for further study, detailed notes on words and phrases from the text and the additional scene 2 of the second Act, this is the definitive edition of the play.
In a small tight-knit community gossip and rumour spread like wildfire inflaming personal grievances until no-one is safe from accusation and vengeance. The Crucible is Millers classic dramatisation of the witch-hunt and trials that besieged the Puritan community of Salem in 1692. Seen as a chilling parallel to the McCarthyism and repressive culture of fear that gripped America in the 1950s, the plays timeless relevance and appeal remains as strong as when the play opened on Broadway in 1953.
About the Author: Arthur Miller
Arthur Miller was born in New York City in 1915. After graduating from the University of Michigan, he began work with the Federal Theatre Project. His first Broadway hit was All My Sons, closely followed by Death of a Salesman, The Crucible and A View from the Bridge. His other writing include Focus, a novel; The Misfits, first published as a short story, then as a cinema novel; In Russia, In the Country, Chinese Encounters (all in collaboration with his wife, photographer Inge Morath) and Salesman in Beijing, non-fiction; and his autobiography, Timebends, published in 1987. Among his other plays are: Incident At Vichy, The Creation of the World and Other Business, The American Clock, The Last Yankee, Resurrection Blues and Finishing the Picture. His novella, Plain Girl, was published in 1995 and his second collection of short stories, Presence, in 2007. He died in February 2005 aged eighty-nine.
