Most Popular Books by Thornton Wilder

The collapse of a rope bridge in Peru sets a friar on a quest to learn about those who were lost in this classic, Nobel Prize–winning novel. Peru, 1714. On the road between Lima and Cuzco, a century-old rope bridge collapses while five people are crossing it. Brother Juniper, a Franciscan monk, is about to cross the bridge himself when he witnesses the incident. To reconcile his faith with this seemingly senseless tragedy, Brother Juniper embarks on a years-long journey to learn all he can about the individuals who lost their lives. Through their interwoven stories, Thornton Wilder reveals his own profound reflections on the nature of love, fate, and free will. The Bridge of San Luis Rey was met with worldwide acclaim when it was first published in 1927. Today, it is widely considered one of the towering achievements of American literature.

Thornton Wilder Comedy Characters: 2 male, 3 female In this provocative, sometimes chilling comedy, Wilder renders a child''s-eye view of the grown-up world, as a father, a mother and their three children play a revealing game of make-believe in which the children pretend to be orphans. Startling truths emerge on both sides, as pretense challenges the family to discard the traditional roles of parent, spouse, child, and sibling--blurring the lines between perception and rea

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

"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

“[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.

"This play is a rewritten version of the play "The merchant of Yonkers" which was directed in 1938 ..."--P. [4].

“[Wilder''s] finest and most beautiful novel. . . . Spanning two continents and several generations, it begins as a murder mystery and goes on to tell a story, at once dramatic and philosophical, about the range of human courage, aspirations, steadfastness, weakness, defeat and victory.” — New York Post This beautiful edition of Thornton Wilder’s renowned National Book Award–winning novel features a foreword by John Updike and an afterword by Tappan Wilder, who draws on unique sources as Wilder’s unpublished letters, handwritten annotations, and other illuminating documentary material. At once a murder mystery and a philosophical tale, The Eighth Day is a “suspenseful and deeply moving” (New York Times) work of classic stature that has been hailed as a great American epic. Set in a mining town in southern Illinois, the novels centers around two families blasted apart when the patriarch of one family, John Ashley, is accused of murdering his best friend. Ashley''s miraculous jailbreak on the eve of his execution and his subsequent flight to South America trigger a powerful story tracing the fates of all those whose lives are forever changed by the tragedy: Ashley himself, his wife and children, and the wife and children of the victim.

Drawing on such unique sources as the author''s unpublished letters, business records, and obscure family recollections, Tappan Wilder''s Afterword adds a special dimension to the reissue of this hilarious tale about goodness in a fallen world. Meet George Marvin Brush—Don Quixote come to Main Street in the Great Depression, and one of Thornton Wilder''s most memorable characters. George Brush, a traveling textbook salesman, is a fervent religious convert who is determined to lead a good life. With sad and sometimes hilarious consequences, his travels take him through smoking cars, bawdy houses, banks, and campgrounds from Texas to Illinois—and into the soul of America itself.

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 -- 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.

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.

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.

Describes life in ancient Greece shortly before the beginning of the Christian era.

"An extremely entertaining array of American life in a bygone era." --The New Yorker The last of Thornton Wilder''s works published during his lifetime, Theophilus North is part autobiographical and part the imagined adventure of his twin brother who died at birth. 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, spy, confidant, lover, friend, and enemy as he becomes entangled in the intrigues of both upstairs and downstairs in a glittering society dominated by leisure. 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 about life, love, and work at the end of the day—even after a visit to Newport.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

"The Cabala" by way of Thornton Wilder, is a singular that delves into the complexities of human relationships and the search for which means in lifestyles. Wilder, an American playwright and novelist, is pleasant acknowledged for his acclaimed works together with "Our Town" and "The Bridge of San Luis Rey." Set in Rome, the unconventional follows the reviews of Samuele, a younger American painter, who turns into entangled inside the lives of a collection of eccentric and influential characters. The narrative unfolds via a sequence of interconnected memories, exploring topics of love, friendship, artwork, and the search for non-secular achievement. Wilder''s "The Cabala" is widely known for its intricate man or woman development and its portrayal of the bohemian lifestyle of the put up-World War I technology. The term "Cabala" refers to a paranormal and esoteric lifestyle, and Wilder weaves elements of thriller and introspection all through the novel, inviting readers to ponder the deeper dimensions of existence. Through colourful and evocative prose, Wilder crafts a narrative that transcends the boundaries of time and area, supplying a meditation on the human circumstance. "The Cabala" stands as a testament to Thornton Wilder''s literary versatility and his exploration of profound philosophical and existential questions.

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.

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

This one-act comedy, set in a Pullman car on a train traveling from New York to Chicago in December, 1930, introduces techniques Wilder would use in future three-act plays. Pullman Car takes us on a metaphorical journey by train through the American landscape, a diverse band of travelers encapsulated in a Pullman car hurtle through time, space and a range of emotions.5 women, 12 men

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

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 story on its head -to shake up the language, as it were. He also said--about his plays dealing with religious themes and stories--that in "these matters beyond logic, beauty is the only persuasion."--Www.throntonwilder.com.

"Each of the novels is a special achievement, different in its own fashion from any other novels written at the time, or since. The Woman of Andros is a Greek pastoral as beautifully handled as the figures on a Greek vase. It contrasts with The Bridge of San Luis Rey, which is a fable (perhaps more Buddhist than Christian in its feeling), as much as with The Cabala, which is an album of boldly depicted characters. All three novels, different as they are from one another, have something in common besides their economy of statement and their felicity of style. Perhaps it is the quality that was praised by Henry James in his little book on Hawthorne. There he said, speaking of The Scarlet Letter, ''It has about it that charm, very hard to express, which we find in an artist''s work the first time he has touched his highest mark--a sort of straightness and naturalness of execution, and unconsciousness of his public, and freshness of interest in his theme.'' These books have that quality too, and they ask to be reread."--From back cover.

In 45 v.C., één jaar voor hij vermoord zal worden, blikt de Romeinse diktator C. Julius Caesar (100 v.C.-44 v.C.) terug op zijn leven en loopbaan.