Books with title The Crank, 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 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.

Based on historical people and real events, Miller's classic play about the witch hunts and trials in 17th century Salem, Massachusetts, is a searing portrait of a community engulfed by hysteria. Written in 1953, The Crucible is a mirror which Miller uses to reflect the anti-Communist hysteria inspired by Senator Joseph McCarthy's "witch-hunts" in the U.S. Reissue.

Few serious American playwrights have captured the imagination of the theatre public all over the world as has Arthur Miller with Death Of A Salesman and The Crucible. Mr. Miller's plays are rooted in a realistically critical view of American life and propelled by the intense personal conviction of a man who cares what he writes about and writes about something that matters. In The Crucible he turns for his setting to the grim days of the Salem witch trials, and brings into urgently brilliant focus an issue that still weighs heavily the progress of American civilization - the problem of guilt by association.