Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Blithedale Romance - Original Edition Nathaniel Hawthorne

A group of people is a powerful mixture of competing ambitions, and its idealism finds little satisfaction in agriculture. Instead of changing the world, Blithedale community members individually follow selfish paths that ultimately lead to tragedy. Hawthorne's tale simultaneously mourns and saturates a rural idyll, not unlike the history of America in the 19th century as a whole.