Description: Thornton Wilder was known as the man who knew everyone, and this impressive volume--the first to provide a comprehensive collection of the writer's correspondence--vividly documents the events and people that shaped his life and work. 32 b&w photos throughout.
Brief description:
Jackson R. Bryer is Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Maryland. He is the coeditor of Selected Letters of Eugene O'Neill and of Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.
Review Quotes:
"If you'd like to know how it feels to be a distinguished and popular author of both plays and novels for a good part of the 20th century, and to correspond with famous friends and a talented family, and to be a central figure in the events of one's time, then this is a good book to roll around in." - A.R. Gurney, author of Love Letters
"Students and devotees of Wilder will find this a useful companion to his literary work." - Library Journal
"A staggering range of acquaintance. . . . Wilder was a charmer. . . . His letters are chatty, intimate, appealingly self-deprecating." - New Republic
"A book to treasure and to share. . . . A remarkable collection of letters covering more than 60 years of Thornton Wilder's life that become, in page after page, a blueprint of this brilliant, compassionate, truthful, loving man whose wit and superb command of language include the reader in a history of his friendships, of his family." - Marian Seldes
"[An] essential gathering of letters, carefully edited and abundantly annotated. . . . Like the best collections of correspondence in the hands of sensitive editors, this one peels away the quotidian to reveal the underlying personality of its subject." - Publishers Weekly
"No research was more valuable to me as I prepared to play the role of the Stage Manager in Our Town than Penelope Niven's exquisite biography about the playwright, Thornton Wilder. . . . For anyone interested in Wilder or his works, I promise you will never see Wilder's work exactly the same again--in the best way. Niven offers a peek into Wilder's heart and mind that makes clear his creative intention and meaning. She enriches our understanding of his already profound work." - Jim Parsons, Actor
"Wilder's writing is sharply etched and generous of spirit. [In Selected Letters] he consistently discharges the obligation he imposed on his correspondents: that their letters 'intimate the alterations of climate in their hearts and minds.'" - Times Literary Supplement (London)
"A book to treasure and to share. . . . A remarkable collection of letters covering more than 60 years of Thornton Wilder's life that become, in page after page, a blueprint of this brilliant, compassionate, truthful, loving man whose wit and superb command of language include the reader in a history of his friendships, of his family. What emerges from these pages is a new and sometimes surprising self-portrait of a great American artist." - Marian Seldes