The Crucible by Arthur Miller is a play based upon the events in 1692, which led to the Salem Witch Trials, a series of hearings before local magistrates to prosecute over 150 people (falsely) accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts, between February 1692 and May 1693.

The play was written in the early 1950s during the time of McCarthyism, when the US government blacklisted accused communists. Miller himself was questioned by the House of Representatives' Committee on Un-American Activities in 1956. The play was first performed on Broadway on January 22, 1953. The reviews of the first production were hostile, but a year later a new production succeeded and the play became a classic. Today it is studied in high schools and universities, because of its status as a revolutionary work of theatre and for its allegorical relationship to testimony given before the House Committee On Un-American Activities during the 1950s.

- from Wikipedia

I read this as a student. Found it to be an interesting and good read.

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This book went home with LeishaCamden after the meetup today. I hope you'll like it!

Got this at meetup yesterday. I've read about this play, but I've never read the thing itself. :-) I hope it will be interesting ... once I get around to reading it. ;-)

I've read this book now ... a couple of months ago, in fact, I'm just such a slow journaller. It was a good read, well written and insightful. The setting seemed convincing and reading this made me interested in reading more about the period. The play has more detail in it than I expected, detail about the internal lives of the characters ... unusual in a play. The plot is rather scary in terms of what it deals with, mass hysteria and so on ... but again, convincing and credible.

Having read this I would really like to see it performed on stage some time too. I hope I get the chance to see it some time. :-)

Time for this book to travel to Finland! It will be part of the book buffet at this year's official BookCrossing convention in Tampere 😊

Part of the book buffet at the Tampere convention!