The Blithedale Romance Information

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The Blithedale Romance

Set on a communal farm called Blithedale, "The Blithedale Romance" is the story of four inhabitants of the commune: Hollingsworth, a misogynist philanthropist obsessed with turning Blithedale into a colony for the reformation of criminals; Zenobia, a passionate feminist; Priscilla, who turns out to be Zenobia's half-sister; and Miles Coverdale, the narrator of the story. The story concerns the freindship of the four at the commune, which starts intensely during the spring and summer but as autumn approaches begins to disintegrate towards a tragic end. A classic of American literature, "The Blithedale Romance" is a compelling narrative set against the backdrop of many important social and political issues of the 19th century.

Annotation:
Hawthorne's portrait of a utopian community whose collective ideals increasingly clash with the passions of individual members is based on his own experiences at Brook Farm. The novel tackles many of the burning issues of his day, including women's rights, spiritualism, and socialism. In spite of its seriousness, Henry James called it "the lightest, the brightest, the liveliest of Nathaniel Hawthorne's novels."

Praise

New York Review of Books
"Though not his greatest, THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE is the most 'actual' of Hawthorne's novels....We enjoy, in the direct way of lively reportage, the details of the farm....We enjoy the romance's images of homely country life undertaken by excessively refined sensibilities....Hawthorne's haunted, twilit imagination never admitted more local American daylight than in THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE." - John Updike 08/09/2001

Author Bio

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Nathaniel Hawthorne lived much of his life in Concord, Massachusetts, where he was briefly at Brook Farm, the experimental transcendental community. One of his ancestors was a judge in the Salem witchcraft trials and became the model for the accursed founder of "The House of the Seven Gables". Hawthorne traveled extensively in Italy and set "The Marble Faun" there. His novels, particularly his most famous work, "The Scarlet Letter", made his reputation, but he is also considered a master of the short-story form.