The Blithedale Romance
Blithedale Romance, The,a novel by Hawthorne , published 1852 , and based on Hawthorne's own residence in 1841 at the Transcendental co-operative community at Brook Farm.
It is narrated by a poet, Miles Coverdale, who visits Blithedale Farm, near Boston, where he meets the exotic, wealthy, and queenly Zenobia (said to be based on Margaret Fuller , although she is mentioned by name in the text, possibly to warn readers against the identification), the philanthropic, but self-engrossed, inhuman, and fierce, social reformer Hollingsworth, and the gentle, delicate girl Priscilla. Coverdale broods on Fourier , Carlyle , and Emerson , while both the women (who turn out to be half-sisters) fall in love with Hollingsworth; Zenobia is rejected and drowns herself, Hollingsworth marries Priscilla, and Coverdale remains a sceptical, solitary observer of mankind's aspirations and its disappointments.
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