Penelope Niven

by Thornton Wilder

  82. Ibid.

  83. Ibid.

  84. Decennial Census Population of Arizona, Counties, Cities, Places, 1860–2000, U.S. Bureau of Census.

  85. TNW to Isabel Wilder, August 26, 1962, TNW Collection, YCAL.

  86. Ibid.

  87. TNW to Charlotte Tappan Niven, September 8, 1962, TNW Collection, YCAL.

  88. Ibid.

  89. TNW to Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant, September 12, 1962, SL, 608–9. For additional information on TNW’s sojourn in Douglas, see Tom Miller, “Thornton Wilder’s Desert Oasis,” Smithsonian Magazine, July 2009, 80: 82–86.

  90. TNW to Eileen and Roland Le Grand, December 10, 1962, SL, 610–12.

  91. TNW to Arthur Gelb, “Thornton Wilder, 63, Sums Up Life and Art in New Play Cycle,” New York Times, November 5, 1961, 1.

  92. TNW to Tappan Wilder, December 19, 1962, Private Collection.

  93. TNW to Thew Wright, January 11, 1963, SL, 617–18.

  94. Ibid.

  95. TNW, Nomination of Edward Albee, [1965?], TNW Collection, YCAL.

  96. TNW to Louise Talma, December 6, 1962, YCAL.

  97. TNW to Charlotte Wilder, November 30, [1960?], Private Collection.

  98. TNW to Tappan Wilder, December 19, 1962, Private Collection.

  99. Tony Luhan died in January 1963.

  100. TNW to Thew Wright, January 11, 1963, SL, 617–18.

  101. TNW to Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin, January 14, 1963, SL, 619–621; TNW to Thew Wright, January 11, 1963, SL, 617–18.

  102. TNW to Catherine Coffin, February 7, 1963, SL, 621–23.

  103. TNW to Isabel Wilder, March 17, 1963, SL, 624–26.

  104. Ibid.

  105. Ibid.

  106. Ibid.

  107. TNW to Harold Freedman, November 18, 1963, SL, 626–28.

  108. Isabel Wilder to Vivien Leigh, November 12, 1965, copy, TNW Collection, YCAL.

  109. TNW to ANW, October 22, 1975, TNW Collection, YCAL, uncataloged letters.

  36: “TAPESTRY” (1963–1970)

  1. TNW to Amy Wertheimer, “May 20 or 27,” 1964, TNW Collection, YCAL.

  2. TNW to Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin, January 11, 1964, Private Collection.

  3. TNW to Catharine and ANW, April 21, 1964, SL, 630–32.

  4. TNW to Charlotte Niven, December 19, 1963, TNW Collection, YCAL.

  5. TNW to Tappan Wilder, December 19, 1963, SL, 628–30.

  6. TNW to Catharine and ANW, April 21, 1964, SL, 630–32.

  7. Ibid.

  8. Ibid.

  9. Ibid.

  10. TNW to Charlotte Niven, June 15, 1964, TNW Collection, YCAL; Isabel Wilder to Carol Brandt, June 25 and June 26, 1964, TNW Collection, YCAL. Also see Isabel Wilder to Bill Layton, July 30, 1964, copy, TNW Collection, YCAL.

  11. TNW to Charlotte Niven, March 26, 1965, TNW Collection, YCAL.

  12. Ibid.

  13. TNW to Phyllis McGinley, April 2, 1965, SL, 633–35.

  14. TNW to Charlotte Niven, March 26, 1965, TNW Collection, YCAL.

  15. TNW to Amy Wertheimer, May 1, 1965, TNW Collection, YCAL.

  16. TNW to Charlotte Niven, May 1, 1965, TNW Collection, YCAL.

  17. TNW to Catharine Dix “Dixie” Wilder, June 3, 1965, SL, 636–37. As Robin Wilder and Bryer point out in The Selected Letters of Thornton Wilder, TNW quoted Jean Racine’s Athalie in French in the reference in this letter.

  18. TNW to Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin, June 21, 1965, Private Collection. Stover at Yale was a novel by Owen Johnson, published in 1911, wherein Stover goes to Yale from the Lawrenceville School and makes a name for himself.

  19. TNW to Amy Wertheimer, April 7, 1966, SL, 638–39.

  20. TNW, The Eighth Day, 17.

  21. TNW to Cheryl Crawford, “Maundy Thursday,’’ [April 7?], 1966, SL, 639–41.

  22. TNW to ANW, September 13, 1966, TNW Collection, YCAL, uncataloged letters.

  23. TNW to Charlotte Niven, November 24, 1966, TNW Collection, YCAL.

  24. TNW to Isabel Wilder, November 28, 1966, TNW Collection, YCAL.

  25. TNW to Charlotte Niven, February 23, [1967?], TNW Collection, YCAL.

  26. TNW to Robert Penn Warren, September 14, 1968, YCAL. “Merton’s Magic Mountain”: Thomas Merton (1915–68), a Trappist monk, was an American writer and the author of more than seventy books, including an autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain (1948). TNW was thinking of Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain (1924).

  27. TNW to unidentified reader, March 16, 1968, typed copy, YCAL.

  28. TNW to Cass Canfield, March 1, 1968, SL, 653–54.

  29. Marie-Joseph-Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1885–1955) was, by preference, customarily referred to as “Teilhard.”

  30. TNW, The Eighth Day, 309, 318, 367.

  31. Ibid., 217.

  32. Ibid., 351.

  33. Ibid., 148.

  34. Ibid., 148.

  35. Ibid., 407.

  36. TNW, 1948–61 Journal, Entry 40 [titled “Sketch for a Portrait of Tia Bates”], May 23, 1941, TNW Collection, YCAL.

  37. TNW, Heaven’s My Destination, 62, 75.

  38. TNW, Theophilus North, 26.

  39. Quoted in Richard Ellmann, James Joyce, New and Revised Edition (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), 711–12.

  40. TNW, The Eighth Day, 435.

  41. TNW to Amos Tappan Wilder, December 19, 1962, SL, 615–16.

  42. TNW to Cass Canfield, March 1, 1968, SL, 653–54.

  43. TNW to Grace Christy Foresman, April 21, 1967, SL, 643–44.

  44. TNW to Isabel Wilder, March 19, 1965, TNW Collection, YCAL.

  45. TNW to Cass Canfield, February 28, 1968, TNW Collection, YCAL.

  46. TNW to Timothy Findley, May 5, 1967, National Archives of Canada.

  47. TNW to Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin, April 24, 1967, Private Collection.

  48. Ibid.

  49. TNW to James Leo Herlihy, February 12, 1970, SL, 671–74.

  50. TNW to Amy Wertheimer, “Easter 1968” [April 14, 1968], TNW Collection, YCAL.

  51. TNW, holograph note, [1960s?], TNW Collection, YCAL.

  52. TNW to Ruth Gordon, August 15, 1968, Private Collection.

  53. TNW to Isabel Wilder, February 11, 1969, TNW Collection, YCAL.

  54. TNW to Isabel Wilder, February 16, 1969, TNW Collection, YCAL.

  55. TNW to Isabel Wilder, February 23, 1969, TNW Collection, YCAL.

  56. TNW to Isabel Wilder, January 29, 1970, TNW Collection, YCAL.

  57. TNW to Isabel Wilder, February 3, 1970, TNW Collection, YCAL.

  58. TNW to James Leo Herlihy, February 12, 1970, SL, 671–74.

  59. TNW to Isabel Wilder, February 4, 1969, TNW Collection, YCAL.

  60. TNW to Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin, February 27, 1968, Private Collection.

  61. TNW to Isabel Wilder, April 11 and June 12, 1969, TNW Collection, YCAL.

  62. TNW to Dixie Wilder [January 7, 1969?], TNW Collection, YCAL.

  63. TNW to Isabel Wilder, March 7, [1970?], TNW Collection, YCAL.

  64. TNW to Isabel Wilder, October 27, [1969 or 1970?], TNW Collection, YCAL. TNW was quoting lines from Alexander Pope’s “Eloisa to Abelard” (1717): “How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot! / The world forgetting, by the world forgot. / Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!”

  65. TNW to Isabel Wilder, November 6, 1969, TNW Collection, YCAL.

  66. Isabel Wilder to Miss Camargo, May 28, 1967, TNW Collection, YCAL.

  67. TNW to George F. Edmonds, April 14, 1972, typed copy, TNW Collection, YCAL.

  68. TNW to Richard H. Goldstone, November 19, 1968, SL, 661–63. In 1969 Goldstone purchased 117 letters written by TNW to Sibyl Colefax. See Gloria Emerson, “Wilder’s Letters to London Hostess Are Disclosed,” New York Times, September 3, 1969. Goldstone’s biography of TNW was at that time scheduled to be published by Harper, TNW’s publisher. Sibyl Colefax’s letters to Wilder are housed in the TNW Collection, YCAL.

  69. TNW to Isabel Wilder, April 10, [1970?]
, TNW Collection, YCAL.

  70. TNW to Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin, March 15, 1970, Private Collection.

  37: “LIFE AND DEATH” (1970–1975)

  1. TNW to Amy Wertheimer, April 17, 1967, TNW Collection, YCAL.

  2. TNW to Gertrude Abercrombie, March 2, 1971, Archives of American Art.In our series of interviews, Catharine “Dixie” Wilder Guiles furnished details and context for the last years of TNW’s life, as well as invaluable general background on Wilder family life, especially in the later years.

  3. TNW to Sol Lesser, October 29, 1973, TNW Collection, YCAL. Context and many details of the later years of TNW’s life are drawn in part from Isabel Wilder’s letters to Professor Guelfo Frulla, a professor at Yale for eleven years, from 1947 to 1958, and a Wilder family friend. These letters, from 1958 to 1976, record copious details about Isabel’s life with TNW, particularly during the last decade of his life. Dr. Frulla’s nephew Dr. Tommaso Munari kindly provided copies of the letters, as well as of TNW’s letters to Dr. Frulla.

  4. TNW to C. M. and Pani —[April 23, 1974?], TNW Collection, YCAL.

  5. TNW to Charles Abramson, September 2, 1971, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

  6. TNW, “Twinhood,” manuscript fragment, 1969, TNW Collection, YCAL. “Identical replica”: “Chapter Three: First Sketches Toward a Characterization of Theophilus,” n.d., TNW Collection, YCAL.

  7. TNW to Simon Blow, “Arts Guardian: ‘I was Born an Identical Twin . . . ,’ ” Manchester Guardian, June 29, 1974.

  8. TNW to Eileen and Roland Le Grand, April 25, 1971, SL, 678–79.

  9. TNW to Mia Farrow, October 4, 1972, SL, 682–85.

  10. TNW to Catherine Coffin, November 1, 1968, SL, 656–58.

  11. TNW to Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin, n.d., Private Collection. The songs TNW refers to appear on the Beatles’ 1967 album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

  12. TNW, “Description of the Accident,” July 23, 1972, TNW Collection, YCAL.

  13. TNW to Irene Worth, February 5, 1973, YCAL.

  14. Record of the Harper & Row advance for Theophilus North, Private Collection.

  15. TNW to Irene Worth, February 5, 1973, YCAL.

  16. Ibid.

  17. TNW, Theophilus North, 2.

  18. Ibid., 3.

  19. Ibid., 4. In this scene Theophilus North and Sigmund Freud discuss the oedipal implications of this aversion to “respectable women,” citing Charles Marlow in Oliver Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer.

  20. TNW, Theophilus North, 5.

  21. Ibid., 6.

  22. Ibid., 374.

  23. Ibid., 310.

  24. TNW to Peggy and Roy Anderson, October 11, 1973, SL, 688–89.

  25. Ibid.

  26. TNW to Dalma H. Brunauer, November 11, 1975, SL, 700–701.

  27. Ibid.

  28. TNW, Theophilus North, 372–73.

  29. TNW to Isabel Wilder, March 19, 1965, TNW Collection, YCAL.

  30. TNW, “Preface,” incomplete manuscript draft of preface to Theophilus North, TNW Collection, YCAL.

  31. TNW, Theophilus North, 291–92.

  32. TNW to Gladys Campbell, April 20, 1973, University of Chicago Library.

  33. TNW to ANW, April 8, 1974, TNW Collection, YCAL, uncataloged letters.

  34. TNW to Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin, April 20, 1973, SL, 685–86.

  35. “Every aspect”: TNW to Catharine and ANW, June 9–11, 1973, TNW Collection, YCAL, uncataloged letters. “Suddenly stung”: TNW to Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin, April 29, 1973, SL, 685–86. This April 29 passage is a continuaton of the letter TNW began writing to Gordon and Kanin on April 20, 1973.

  36. TNW, 1948–61 Journal, Entry 502 [January 1969?], TNW Collection, YCAL. From his vantage point in Europe, away from his earlier journals, Wilder apparently began the numbering from memory and so mistakenly assigned the 1969 entries numbers he had already used in his 1951 journal.

  37. Ibid.

  38. Ibid.

  39. TNW, “The Detective Story Mystery,” April 27 and May 3 and 4, 1931, TNW Collection, YCAL. This five-page, unfinished holograph draft was written in Munich.

  40. TNW, 1948–61 Journal, Entry 502 [January 1969?], TNW Collection, YCAL.

  41. Ibid.

  42. TNW to Peggy and Roy Anderson, October 11, 1973, SL, 688–89.

  43. TNW to Charlotte Niven, June 22, 1967, TNW Collection, YCAL.

  44. TNW to Isabel Wilder, November 17, 1966, TNW Collection, YCAL.

  45. TNW to Gene Tunney, December 4, 1970, SL, 675–77.

  46. TNW, Theophilus North, 151.

  47. TNW, “Theophilus North, Zen Detective,” n.d., holograph manuscript, TNW Collection, YCAL.

  48. TNW to ANW, June 9, 1974, TNW Collection, YCAL, uncataloged letters.

  49. Susan H. Llewellyn’s telling of Barbara Effron’s anecdote to PEN, April 1, 2011.

  50. TNW to Catharine “Dixie” Wilder, June 30, 1974, SL, 693–94.

  51. TNW to Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin, January 17, 1975, Private Collection.

  52. TNW to Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin, December 31, 1974, Private Collection.

  53. TNW to Paul Horgan, “Thornton Wilder: A Little Drawing in Line,” Book-of-the-Month Club News, March 1967, 6, 16.

  54. TNW to ANW, [June 18, 1974?], TNW Collection, YCAL, uncataloged letters.

  55. TNW to ANW, April 3, 1974, TNW Collection, YCAL, uncataloged letters.

  56. TNW to Sol Lesser, September 23, 1974, UCLA.

  57. Ibid.

  58. TNW to Enid Bagnold, paraphrasing Goethe, June 29, 1972, SL, 679–82. TNW may have been paraphrasing or at least alluding to Goethe’s 1814 poem, “Phänomen,” which says, in part,

  Though the brow is white,

  it is still heaven’s.

  So you, lively old man, do not be sad.

  Though your hair is white, still you will love.

  59. TNW, 1948–1961 Journal, Entry 542, April [no day], 1951, TNW Collection, YCAL.

  60. TNW to Helen and Jacob Bleibtreu, November 3, 1973, SL, 689–90.

  61. TNW to Robert J. Donovan, “Thornton Wilder on Life Today: ‘It’s an Age of Transition—and It’s Exciting,’ ” Los Angeles Times, October 15, 1973, reprinted in Bryer, Conversations with Thornton Wilder, 107.

  62. TNW to Ellen Gates Starr, February 23, 1939, Private Collection.

  63. TNW to Robert J. Donovan, “Thornton Wilder on Life Today: ‘It’s an Age of Transition—and It’s Exciting.’ ”

  64. TNW to ANW, [June 18, 1974?], TNW Collection, YCAL, uncataloged letters.

  65. Janet Wilder Dakin to Winthrop “Toby” Dakin, [January 1979?], Private Collection.

  66. TNW To Garson Kanin, March 7, 1967, TNW Collection, YCAL. See also Edmund W. Pavenstedt, White and Case, to TNW, September 2, 1966, and to John W. Barnett, Wiggin & Dana, October 20, 1966, TNW Collection, YCAL.

  67. “The Eighth Day Royalty Earnings,” [1975?], Private Collection.

  68. “Charlotte Elizabeth Wilder,” Admissions Report, November 12, 1969, Private Collection.

  69. TNW to Ruth Gordon, January [no day], 1969, Private Collection.

  70. TNW to Isabel Wilder, January 29, 1970, TNW Collection, YCAL.

  71. Charlotte Wilder to TNW, June 30, 1971, TNW Collection, YCAL.

  72. Sol Lesser to TNW, April 3, 1975, TNW Collection, YCAL.

  73. TNW to Sol Lesser, April 17, 1975, holograph drafts and a typescript copy, TNW Collection, YCAL.

  74. TNW to ANW, July 28, 1975, TNW Collection, YCAL, uncataloged letters. Wilder would most likely have appreciated the work that would be done in the future by scholars cited in this biography, as well as others, including Martin Blank, ed., Critical Essays on Thornton Wilder (New York: G. K. Hall & Company, 1996); Lincoln Konkle, Thornton Wilder and the Puritan Narrative Tradition (Columbia, MO: The University of Missouri Press, 2006); Paul Lifton, The Theatre of Thornton Wilder: Contributions in Drama and Theatre Studies (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995); and Christopher J
. Wheatley, Thornton Wilder & Amos Wilder: Writing Religion in Twentieth-Century America (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2011).

  75. TNW to ANW, July 28, 1975, TNW Collection, YCAL, uncataloged letters.

  76. TNW to Amos Tappan Wilder, August 22, 1975, Private Collection.

  77. TNW to Malcolm Cowley, November 18, 1975, SL, 701–2.

  78. TNW to Eileen and Roland Le Grand, December 3, 1975, SL, 704–5.

  79. TNW to Carol Brandt, November 18, 1975, SL, 703.

  80. Ruth Gordon, Remarks at TNW’s Memorial Service, January 18, 1976, TNW Collection, YCAL.

  81. TNW to Eileen and Roland Le Grand, December 3, 1975, SL, 704–5.

  EPILOGUE

  1. ANW, Interment Service for TNW, December 9, 1975, TNW Collection, YCAL.

  2. Tappan Wilder, Memorial Service for TNW, January 8, 1976, TNW Collection, YCAL.

  3. TNW, The Woman of Andros, 176.

  4. TNW, “Report of the Rapporteur General,” International Conference of Artists, Venice, September 28, 1952, UNESCO document, UNESCO/ART/DIV/7.

  5. TNW to Isabel Wilder, August 25, 1937, TNW Collection, YCAL.

  6. TNW, unpublished lecture on biography, n.d., TNW Collection, YCAL.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The art of biography is more difficult than is generally supposed.

  —THORNTON WILDER,

  The Bridge of San Luis Rey

  Several years ago, after I spoke to some elementary school children about my adventures as a writer, a little girl said, “I’ve just decided I’m going to be a writer when I grow up. It sounds like so much more fun than working!” Researching and writing biography can be fun, but it is most often difficult, complicated, painstaking work. Providentially, I love doing it, and fortunately, my work has been facilitated and encouraged by countless individuals who have performed innumerable acts of kindness and assistance.

  I could not have finished this book without miracles. Some of them were worked by the following: First Jennifer, my wise and beautiful daughter, a gifted writer, and a person of extraordinary grace, strength, and wit. She gives me boundless love, inspiration, encouragement, and joy. Without her I could not have surmounted the challenges in my own life while I was writing this book about Wilder’s life.

  Next, Tappan Wilder, a remarkable literary executor. He has given me unflagging encouragement and support, all the while respecting and protecting my total independence. He has generously shared papers and documents, questions and ideas, and enlightening memories and conversations, holding nothing back. He always stands by to help but never stands in the way. His mantra has been “This is your book. Tell the story as you see it.” Like his uncle Thornton, he has a consummate gift for friendship.