New Releases by Thornton Wilder

The Bridge of San Luis Rey is set in 18th-century Peru and begins with the collapse of an ancient Inca bridge, sending five people to their deaths. The novel follows Brother Juniper, a Franciscan friar who witnesses the tragedy and embarks on a quest to understand the lives of the victims, hoping to prove God''s divine plan through their stories. The narrative explores the lives of the five individuals, including a noblewoman longing for her daughter''s love, twin brothers grappling with loss, and an aging actress trying to reclaim her former glory. Through this exploration, Wilder delves into themes of fate, love, and the human condition, ultimately questioning the nature of destiny and the search for meaning in life. The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder earned the Pulitzer Prize in 1928 and became the best-selling work of fiction that year. The novel explores profound themes of fate, divine providence, and the search for meaning in human lives, raising the question of whether there is a larger direction beyond individual will. Its enduring relevance led to its inclusion in Time magazine''s list of the 100 Best English-language Novels, cementing its place in literary history. This case laminate collector''s edition includes a Victorian-inspired dust jacket.

This anthology by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Thornton Wilder is a collection of twenty-two very short plays, three of which are published here for the very first time. These snapshots of the creative spirit at play explore a variety of complex characters that range from the ordinary to the biblical, the haunted to the mystical. From the tale of a conflicted composer with a strangely familiar tune stuck in his head (The Song of Maria Bentedos) to a pair of newlyweds who find themselves bizarrely affected by the color of their hotel''s tea room (Flamingo Red: A Comedy in Danger), all these tales - many told with great wit and humor - ask the thought-provoking questions of mortality, morality and faith that Thornton Wilder is famous for asking. Most of the plays run about four minutes in length, and can be presented with three actors. The entire collection can be presented with a cast ranging from six to thirty-two actors.

The classic Thornton Wilder novel that recreates the dazzling ancient Roman empire of Julius Caesar—now with a new introduction by Jeremy McCarter, author of Young Radicals and co-author (with Lin-Manuel Miranda) of the #1 New York Times bestseller Hamilton: The Revolution. First published in 1948, The Ides of March is a brilliant epistolary novel of the Rome of Julius Caesar. Through imaginary letters and documents, Wilder brings to life a dramatic period of world history and one of its magnetic personalities. In this novel, the Caesar of history becomes Caesar the human being as he appeared to his family, his legions, his Rome, and his empire in the months just before his death. In Wilder’s inventive narrative, all Rome comes crowding through his pages: Romans of the slums, of the villas, of the palaces, brawling youths and noble ladies and prostitutes, and the spies and assassins stalking Caesar in his Rome. Vivid, compelling, and engaging, The Ides of March showcases Thornton Wilder’s unique storytelling genius. This special edition also includes an afterword by Wilder''s nephew, Tappan Wilder, with illuminating documentary material about the novelist and story.

“An extremely entertaining array of American life in a bygone era.” — New Yorker The last of Thornton Wilder’s works published during his lifetime, Theophilus North is part autobiographical and part the imagined adventures of Wilder’s twin brother who died at birth. This edition features an updated afterword from Wilder’s nephew, Tappan Wilder, with illuminating material about the novelist, story and setting. Setting out to see the world in the summer of 1926, Theophilus North gets as far as Newport, Rhode Island, before his car breaks down. To support himself, Theophilus takes jobs in the elegant mansions along Ocean Drive, just as Wilder himself did in the same decade. Soon the young man finds himself playing the roles of tutor, tennis coach, spy, confidant, lover, friend and enemy as he becomes entangled in adventure and intrigue in Newport’s fabulous addresses, as well as in its local boarding houses, restaurants, dives and military barracks. Narrated by the elderly North from a distance of fifty years, Theophilus North is a fascinating commentary on youth and education from the vantage point of age, and deftly displays Wilder’s trademark wit juxtaposed with his lively and timeless ruminations on what really matters, at the end of the day, about life, love, and work.

Finding the theatre of the 1920s lacking in bite and conviction, Thornton Wilder set out to bring back realism and to celebrate the innocent, simple and religious. Yet he also tried to endow individual experience with cosmic significance and Our Town is both an affectionate portrait of American life and ''an attempt to find a value above all price for the smallest events in our daily life''. The Skin of our Teeth deals with human survival in a ''comic strip'' way, and The Matchmaker is a hilarious farce which urges rebellion against all the constraints that deny a rich, full life.

This play is thought to represent middle-age, in Wilder''s unfinished cycle of The Ages of Man. On a point of land jutting into a lake in southern Wisconsin, the Carter family enjoys a summer''s eve. It''s an evening like many others: Nothing happens and everything happens. Each member of the family - sixteen year-old Tom, his seventeen-year-old sister Francesca and their parents, Mr. and Mrs. Carter - shares different memories somehow connected with their surroundings. These memories color the mo

Thornton Wilder, author of such landmark works for the stage as Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth as well as the classic novel The Bridges of San Luis Rey is considered one of America''s greatest man of letters. This two volume publication collects the complete short works for the stage, including a never-before-published one act play.

The publication of volume two of this landmark collection celebrates the close of the centennial year of Thornton Wilder''s birth. This volume collects 17 plays from the author''s three-minute and five-minute plays for five actors series and includes the full-length play The Alcestiad, a major work by the author of Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth which has long been unavailable.

From celebrated Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Thornton Wilder, three of the greatest plays in American literature together in one volume. This omnibus edition brings together Wilder’s three best-known plays: Our Town, The Skin of Our Teeth, and The Matchmaker. Includes a preface by the author, as well as a foreword by playwright John Guare. Our Town, Wilder''s timeless Pulitzer Prize-winning look at love, death, and destiny, opened on Broadway in 1938 and continues to be celebrated and performed around the world. The Skin of our Teeth, Wilder''s 1942 romp about human follies and human endurance starring the Antrobus family of Excelsior, New Jersey, earned Wilder his third Pulitzer Prize. The Matchmaker, Wilder''s brilliant 1954 farce about money and love starring that irrepressible busybody Dolly Gallagher Levi. This play inspired the Broadway musical Hello, Dolly!

“[Our Town] leaves us with a sense of blessing, and the unspoken but palpable command to achieve gratitude in what remains of our days on earth.”— New Yorker Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama of life in the mythical village of Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire—an allegorical representation of all life—is an American classic. It is the simple story of a love affair that asks timeless questions about the meaning of love, life, and death. Our Town explores the relationship between two young neighbors, George Gibbs and Emily Webb, whose childhood friendship blossoms into romance, and then culminates in marriage. When Emily loses her life in childbirth, the circle of life portrayed in each of the three acts—childhood, adulthood, and death—is fully realized. Often considered one of the greatest American plays of all time, Our Town is also Wilder''s most frequently staged play. It debuted on Broadway in 1938 and continues to be performed daily on stages all around the world.

The Drunken Sisters is Wilder''s satyr play that followed The Alcestiad, his adaptation of the ancient Greek "Alcestis" story. Apollo ventures into the land of the three sisters of Fate who control the threads of each man''s life, and here in disguise he tricks the sisters into releasing their death hold on King Admetus. His trick: 3 flagons of wine which he declares to be Aphrodite''s beauty drink but which make the sisters drunk. He then foils them with a riddle, releasing the king

"The best thing he ever wrote," observed Edmund Wilson of Thornton Wilder''s National Book Award winner The Eighth Day (1967), an enthralling novel that shows Wilder revisiting the small-town America of Our Town to fashion a philosophical whodunit. A wrongful conviction for murder and a daring rescue lead to a meditation on justice, destiny, and "the impassioned will," for which "nothing is impossible." Wilder''s last novel, the semi-autobiographical Theophilus North (1973), is an affectionate portrait of Newport, Rhode Island, in the 1920s and a playful, valedictory glance at Wilder''s young manhood. Completing this volume are three never-before- published reminiscences taken from an unfinished autobiography in which Wilder engagingly recalls his childhood stay at a boarding school in China, his time as an undergraduate at Yale, and the uneasy experience of visiting Salzburg not long before Austria was annexed by the Nazis. LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.

Wilder''s series of short works that captures four important stages of life.

Spanning his entire life, The Selected Letters of Thornton Wilder is a comprehensive and fascinating collection of the great American writer''s correspondence. 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, Aaron Copland, Paul Hindemith, Leonard Bernstein, Edward Albee, and Mia Farrow. Equally absorbing are Wilder''s intimate letters to his family. Wilder tells of roller-skating with Walt Disney, remembers an inaugural reception for FDR at the White House, describes his life as a soldier in two World Wars, and recalls dining out with Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor. In these pages, Thornton Wilder speaks for himself in his own unique, enduring voice--informing, encouraging, instructing, and entertaining with his characteristic wit, heart, and exuberance.

Our town -- The skin of our teeth -- The matchmaker -- The Alcestiad -- The drunken sisters -- The marriage we deplore -- The unerring instinct -- Scenes from The emporium -- Plays for Bleecker Street -- The seven ages of man -- Writings on theater.

The play tells the story of two young bucks who, having spent all their money by living too well, leave London and roam from town to town in search of love and fortune. In order to find a wealthy heiress for at least one of them, they pose as master and servant ¿ exchanging roles from one town to the next. In Lichfield, Aimwell is the master and Archer the servant, and there they meet the lovely, wealthy Dorinda and her equally desirable sister-in-law, Mrs. Kate Sullen. They set their caps for these women, but problems abound. Kate is married to a drunken sot who despises her; the innkeeper¿s saucy daughter, Cherry, has set her cap for Archer; Dorinda¿s mother, Lady Bountiful, mistakenly believes herself to be a great healer of the sick, and she guards her daughter like a dragoness; and a band of brigands plans to rob the house of Lady Bountiful that very night, putting all schemes in jeopardy. This is a play in the great tradition of Goldsmith¿s She Stoops to Conquer and Sheridan¿s The Rivals and The School for Scandal. It is classic, formal, robust and hilarious.

These unpublished letters between the esteemed teacher and literary critic, Adaline Glasheen, and the great American writer, Thornton Wilder, were written over a twenty-five year period, from 1950 to 1975. They reveal the probing energy and encyclope

Volume One of the collected short plays by one of the greatest American playwrights of the Twentieth Century.

Letters trace the friendship between Stein and Wilder from late 1934 until Stein''s death in 1946

The sculptor himself is here and and he takes are arm to confess his groping and his abandonments, or to exult in his late-at-night moments of inspiration.

"An Eternal Family narrowly escape one disaster after another, from ancient times to the present. Meet George and Maggie Antrobus (married only 5,000 years); their two children, Gladys and Henry (perfect in every way!); and their maid, Sabina (the ageless vamp) as they overcome ice, flood, and war -- by the skin of their teeth."--Amazon

Millie the nursemaid brings baby Tommy to Central Park in the hopes of a rendezvous with the handsome Patrolman Avonzino. Mrs. Boker soon arrives with baby Moe, and as the two ladies trade snacks and advice on child rearing, the infants compare notes on their parents'' bad behavior and pitiful lack of understanding. Babies act like grown-ups and grown-ups act like babies in this comedy about fulfilling basic human needs.