The Crucible | Suggested Reading

The Crucible What Do I Read Next?

Shortly after The Crucible was published, and Miller was denied a Visa to visit Brussels on the grounds of his supposed communist sympathies, he wrote a satirical piece called "A Modest Proposal for the Pacification of the Public Temper" in which denied that he supported the communist cause. The title is a reference to another satirical essay by Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver's Travels, entitled A Modest Proposal.

George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan (1923) contains historical notes, a trial, confessions and recantations, and deals. The play deals with themes of social order and individual freedom similar to those examined in The Crucible.

Marion L. Starkey's book, The Witch Trials in Massachusetts (Knopf, 1949), came out before The Crucible and was one of the first books to generate interest in the Salem Witch Trials. The text provides an interesting counterpoint to Miller's work, establishing the...
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