The Blithedale Romance Author:Nathaniel Hawthorne A utopian socialist commune is the setting for a novel unique among Hawthorne's masterpieces. Based on the author's own experience with the ill-fated Brook Farm experiment in communal living. The Blithedale Romance is his sole literary attempt to deal directly with his own times; the result is a novel of rare immediacy and naked truth, charged... more » with the chemistry and conflicts of human relationships. Miles Coverdale, the sardonic writer who tells the story while attempting and ultimately failing to remain aloof from it; Zenobia, whose flamboyant sexuality and fiery feminist pride dominate the tale; Hollingsworth, whose magnetic idealism is in savagely ironic contrast to his overwhelming egotism; and Priscilla, whose yielding nature and seeming frailty conceal the qualities of a born survivor - these are the key characters who come together at Blithedale. The "romance" they act out is one in which selfishness and sensuality, hypocrisy and betrayal, violence and death, show themselves as the abiding human verities behind the moral mask and the social lie. In this, his third novel, Hawthorne's vision of the human condition is uncannily akin to that of many present-day authors - and the picture he draws of Blithedale and its residents offers a wealth of insights to the modern reader.« less