In his preface, Hawthorne admits that he found inspiration for The Blithedale Romance in Brook Farm, an agrarian and socialist community where he briefly resided. However, Hawthorne insists that the utopian community serves only as “a theatre” upon which he built the story; furthermore, he maintains that all characters in the novel are fictional.

Miles Coverdale, returning from a mesmerist’s exhibition, describes his fascination with its central star, the Veiled Lady, who is rumored to be beautiful as well as clairvoyant. At his apartment, Coverdale meets Mr. Moodie, who has heard that Coverdale will be journeying to the commune at Blithedale that next day. Moodie asks Coverdale if he knows Zenobia, a member of the community. Coverdale responds that he doesn’t know her personally and reminds Moodie that her name is “a sort of mask” that protects her privacy similarly to the “white drapery of the Veiled Lady” (8).

The next morning, a snowy April day, Coverdale and three companions set out on horseback for Blithedale “in quest of a better life” (10). Remembering his initial joy at Blithedale, Coverdale recalls “a wood-fire, in the parlor of an old farm-house,” but laments that this blaze is now expired and represents only “our exploded scheme for beginning the life of Paradise anew” (9).