Review
"Hawthorne, in putting this novel together, was engaged in the most serious literary enterprise of his career."
--Louis Auchincloss


Book Description
A group of Utopians, unhappy with dissolute, mid-nineteenth-century America, takes to the pastoral life; but the members find little satisfaction in farmwork and communal life because of competing ambitions and idealism. Instead of changing the world, they pursue self-centered paths that ultimately lead to tragedy. Absorbing 1852 novel about love, idealism, and politics bristles with Hawthorne's perceptive wit and intelligence.



The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature
Minor novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne, published in 1852. The novel, about a group of people living in an experimental community, was based in part on Hawthorne's disillusionment with the Brook Farm utopian community near Boston in the 1840s.


From the Publisher
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FROM THE PUBLISHER