Thornton Wilder

This collection takes the measure of Wilder's extraordinary career as a dramatist by presenting the complete span of his achievement, beginning with his early expressionist experiments and daring one-act plays, ranging through the full flowering of maturity, and encompassing the intriguing dramatic projects of his later years, such as his adaptation of the ancient story of Alcestis (The Alcestiad) and plays written for dramatic cycles based on the...

"The author of such classics as Our Town and The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Thornton Wilder was a born storyteller and dramatist--rare talents on glorious display in this volume of more than three hundred letters he penned to a vast array of famous friends and beloved relatives. Through Wilder's correspondence, readers can eavesdrop on his conversations with Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Noël Coward, Gene Tunney, Laurence Olivier,...

A certain old merchant of Yonkers is so rich in 1800 that he decides to take a wife. He employs a matchmaker a woman who subsequently becomes involved with two of his menial clerks, assorted young and lovely ladies, and the headwaiter at an expensive restaurant where this swift farce runs headlong into a hilarious complications. After everyone gets straightened out romantically and has his heart's desire, the merchant finds himself affianced to the...

Oedipus has unknowingly killed his father, married his mother and had four children by her. The play centers around how the persons react as they become aware of the facts.

In his Foreword to The Angel That Troubled the Waters and Other Plays, published in 1928, Wilder explained that almost all the playlets in the book are religious, "but religious in that dilute fashion that is a believer's concession to a contemporary standard of good manners." He wanted to explore religious themes and questions without being preachy, or didactic ... In fact, it was often his intention in such playlets as this one to stand the biblical...

"It's 1926 in Newport Rhode Island, America's most glamorous, exclusive corner. Here the rich rule the roads in their gleaming Rolls Royces while Theophilus North swishes by on his bicycle ... on his way to entertain the wealthy and coach their children in tennis and literature. As the legions of servants politely look on, Master North soon becomes a devotee of the spoiled rich, all in dire need of his charm and wit - the healing powers necessary...