“Why One Writes and What One Writes,” 594
on women, 499–500, 672
Wilder, Thornton Niven, writings of:
The Acolyte, 131–32
adaptations of, 648–50
The Advertisement League, 77
“After a Visit to England,” 527
The Alcestiad/A Life in the Sun, 439, 473–76, 478, 529, 533, 541, 567–69, 572, 580, 587, 605, 627–30, 634–35, 639–40, 645, 647, 653, 674
“The American Loneliness,” 616
And the Sea Shall Give Up Its Dead, 178, 233
The Angel on the Ship, 149
The Angel That Troubled the Waters and Other Plays, 175, 277, 324–25, 388
Bernice, 638, 643
“The Boulevards and the Latin Quarter,” 197
The Boy Sebastian (The Cabala), 197, 263
The Breaking of Exile, 142, 163, 187, 253
Bridge, see Bridge of San Luis Rey, The
Brother Fire: A Comedy for Saints, 101, 110
Cabala, see Cabala, The
“Caone and Acuthna,” 126
“Chefoo, China,” xiii, 20, 42–43, 49
Childhood, 652
“Chinese Story,” 42–43
The Death of the Centaur: A Footnote to Ibsen, 162–63, 168–69, 178, 243
“The Detective Story Mystery,” 689–90, 691–93
Dialogue in the Elizabethan Club, 151
Doremus, 62
The Dreamers, 186–87
The Drunken Sisters, 476, 639, 678
The Eighth Day, 139, 185, 371, 416, 520, 578, 619, 643, 660–61, 662–63, 664, 665, 666, 667–73, 680, 685, 687, 696, 698, 702
The Emporium, 596–99, 603, 604, 605, 612, 634–35
“Empress of Newfoundland,” 595
as escape, 91
experimentation in, xv, 91, 110–11, 127, 161–62, 169, 175, 200, 207, 220–21, 350, 476, 486, 493, 582, 595, 634–36
A Fable for Those Who Plague, 120
“Fables and Tirades,” 238
The Fifty Dollar Play, 421
Flamingo Red: A Comedy in Cages, 101
“Four Minute Plays for Four Persons,” 634, 638
Genivar Wyatt, 142
Geraldine de Vere/de Gray, 238, 241, 249, 252–54
The Greek Woman, 110
The Happy Journey to Trenton and Camden, 349, 379, 408, 424, 447, 453, 552, 555, 643
Heaven’s My Destination, 291, 313, 322, 345, 350–51, 356, 358, 359, 361, 366, 378, 379, 380–81, 382, 388, 390–92, 399, 400, 408, 422, 519, 602, 672
The Hell of the Vizier Kabäar, 402, 420–21, 559, 568, 569
Homage to P. G. Wodehouse, 402, 421, 426
“A House in the Country,” 206
The Ides of March, 384, 421, 437–38, 486, 571, 572, 579–82, 584, 585–90, 602, 645, 648, 649, 650, 702
Incubations on War, 187
Infancy, 652
In Praise of Guynemer, 150, 167
In Shakespeare and the Bible, 638
“The Language of Emotion in Shakespeare,” 101
The Last Word About Burglars, 100, 103
letters, 59–61, 67–68, 84–85, 136, 552, 595; see also specific correspondents
The Long Christmas Dinner and Other Plays in One Act, 341, 348, 349–50, 363, 395, 408, 422, 424, 649
Love and How to Cure It, 419
Lucrece (transl.), 360, 461, 468
Manuelito Becomes an Air Cadet, 530
“The Marriage of Zabett,” 126–27
Masque of the Bright Haired, 120
“Measure for Measure” (sonnet), 150, 243
“The Melting Pot,” 646
Memoirs of Charles Mallison: The Year in Rome/Notes of a Roman Student (The Cabala), 197, 219–20, 221, 225, 226, 238, 242–45, 249, 263; see also Cabala, The
The Merchant of Yonkers/Matchmaker/Hello, Dolly, 342, 371, 404, 420, 439, 444, 451, 455–56, 457–58, 460, 461–64, 466, 467–68, 469–73, 474, 480, 500, 549, 621, 624–26, 642, 646, 656, 660, 663, 674
The Message and Jehanne, 149–50
Mr. Bozzy, 111
Nascuntur Poetae, 152–53
Norton lectures, 609–13, 615–16, 617, 622, 634, 637, 643
That Other Fanny Otcutt, 149–50
Our Town, see Our Town
The Pilgrims, 253
“Plays for Bleecker Street,” 652, 656, 680
poetry, 34, 132, 150, 243
The Primrose Path, 97
Proserpina and the Devil: A Comedy for Marionettes, 120, 178
Pulitzer Prizes for, 313, 322, 352, 459, 460, 465, 549
Pullman Car Hiawatha, 349, 424, 444, 447, 475, 641, 652
reading as foundation of, 59, 107, 109, 127, 157, 200, 206, 207–8, 209, 224, 237–38, 263, 286, 305–6, 327, 390–91, 404, 426, 549, 581, 663
recurrent themes in, 54, 62, 163, 198, 306–7, 312, 351, 415, 423, 440, 441, 555–56, 578, 601–2, 610, 627, 628–29, 635, 640, 641, 663, 669–72, 687, 695
recycling of, 142, 152, 163, 288, 476, 643
rejections of, 186–87
The Rivers Under the Earth, 643
The Rocket: An American Comedy in Four Acts, 103–4, 109–10, 114, 186
“Roman Portraits,” 238
royalties donated to charities, 562
The Russian Princess, 70
“Sealing-Wax,” 101
“Sentences,” 207–8
The Seven Ages of Man, 656, 662
The Seven Deadly Sins, 656, 662
“The Shelley Centenary,” 208
Skin, see Skin of Our Teeth, The
Solus inter Deos Potens, 149
Someone from Assisi, 652
“Some Thoughts on Playwriting,” 200, 598
“Spiritus Valet,” 157–58
“SS Independenza,” 178, 677
St. Francis Lake: A Comedy, 101
“Student-Life at Yale Since the War,” 173
A Successful Failure, 80
Theophilus North, 185, 286, 291, 335, 500, 619, 658–59, 672, 676–78, 680, 683–88, 694, 695–96, 698
“Theophilus North, Zen Detective,” 692–93
Three-Minute Plays for Three Persons, 91, 150, 207, 324, 638
“Toward an American Language,” 616
translations, 293, 295, 296, 359–60, 572, 590
The Trasteverine (The Cabala), 207, 208, 263
The Trumpet Shall Sound, 175, 177, 187, 221, 253–54, 272, 275, 277, 285–88, 348, 595
“The Turn of the Year,” 240–41
The Unerring Instinct, 591
Vecy-Segal, 161
The Victors (transl. Sartre’s Morts sans sépulture), 590
Villa Rhabani, 184, 187, 210
The Walled City, 151–52
The Woman of Andros, 259, 266, 326, 327–28, 330, 331, 332, 333, 334–37, 341, 342–45, 350, 351, 379, 388, 390, 391, 435, 441, 519, 591, 602, 648, 702
The Wreck on the 5:25, 643
Your Community and the War Effort, 530
Wiley, Lee, 179
Williams, Dora Norton, 88, 102
Williams, Ira, 247
Williams, Rose, 619–20
Williams, Tennessee, 619–20, 643
Williamson, Talcott, 88
Wilson, Edmund, 198–99, 312, 319–20, 342, 343–44, 350, 452, 482, 490–91, 546, 663
Wilson, Violette Still, 80
Wilson, Woodrow, 66, 128
Windsor, Duke and Duchess of, 413
Wisconsin State Journal, 2, 10, 14, 15–16, 51, 57, 415
Wodehouse, P. G., 402, 426
Wolfe, Thomas, 389
Wood, Sam, 483
Woolf, Virginia, 413
Woollcott, Alexander, 353, 357, 498, 504, 505, 550–53
and As You Were, 551–52
death of, 552–53
“Five Thousand Letters to Alexander Woollcott,” 553
and friendship, 395, 413, 414, 417, 418, 444, 447, 479, 552, 553
and Harris, 446, 462
in Man Who Came to Dinner, 481
&nbs
p; papers archived at Harvard, 553
and Stein, 397, 406, 430
TNW’s letters to, 385, 387, 408, 410, 416, 421, 425, 431, 450, 474, 487, 494, 519, 526, 537, 539, 550–51, 552–53, 557
and TNW’s works: Merchant, 469, 471, 472; Our Town, 427, 442, 447, 451, 465, 552; Skin, 507, 529, 533, 544, 551, 552
World War I, 128–34, 565
and ANW, 83–84, 115–16, 117–18, 122–23, 127–28, 136–37, 144, 150, 154, 157, 159, 164, 166–67, 169, 172, 235, 376
APW’s pushing of TNW toward, 116, 118, 128, 165
armistice, 169–70
circumcisions during, 166
conscription bill, 132, 133, 134, 160
and farmwork, 134, 140
mustering-out process, 170, 172
onset of, 84
TNW drafted into, 164–66, 167–68, 169
TNW’s Washington job during, 160–61, 164
United States’ entry into, 128–29
World War II, 427, 467
end of, 564, 568
foreboding of, 404–5, 419–20
grim news of, 488–89, 492, 505
impact of, 497, 525, 526–27
North African theater of, 556–57
onset of, 478, 481
and Pearl Harbor, 523, 527–28
and post-traumatic stress disorder, 565–66
and Skin, 492–93, 504–5, 528, 529, 542, 548, 574
TNW’s military service in, 154, 528, 529–30, 537, 538–41, 545, 550–51, 553–54, 556–65, 569
United States’ entry into, 527–28
Worth, Irene, 629, 630, 650, 653, 684
WPA Writers’ Project, 411, 429, 482
Wright, Richard, 429
Wright, Teresa, 537
Wright, Thew, 628, 630, 643, 658
Wycherley, William, 417, 469
Wylie, Elinor, 233, 236, 237, 238, 242, 678
Yaddo colony, 373, 374
Yale Alumni Weekly, 208
Yale Courant, 157
Yale Divinity School, 179, 223, 239, 250
Yale-in-China Association, 82, 98, 116, 121, 138, 150, 188
Yale Literary Magazine “the Lit,” 148, 149, 150, 152, 159, 160, 167, 175, 178, 179, 243, 286
Yale Record, 149
Yale Review, 176, 527
Yale School of Fine Arts, 239
Yale Series of Younger Poets, 219
Yale University:
ANW as student in, 84, 89, 92, 98, 144, 147, 174, 178, 376
APW as student in, 8–9, 10, 146, 178, 239
The Book of Yale Undergraduate Verse, 243
class reunions, 488, 666–67
Drama Association, 149
Elizabethan Club, 151, 178
honorary degree from, 321, 645
network of alumni, 345–46
Stein’s papers archived in, 454
TNW as student in, 144–53, 158–60, 170, 171, 173, 174–78, 216
TNW’s lectures in, 316–17
TNW’s papers archived in, xiv–xv, 436, 595, 679, 705
and World War I, 147–48, 157, 159–60
Yale University Press, 161, 349, 376
Yeats, William Butler, 317
Yong, John K. L., 83
Young, Brigham, 412
Young, Stark, 180, 221, 222, 232, 233
Zanuck, Darryl F., 465
Zuckmayer, Carl, 433
Zurich Festival (1957), 639
PHOTOGRAPHS
Thornton Niven Wilder, Berkeley, California, in 1906 or 1907, at the age of nine or ten. (Courtesy of the Wilder Family LLC and Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, hereafter YCAL.)
Thornton, about three, standing beside the baby carriage that holds his sisters Charlotte and Isabel, who are ready for a ride, Madison, Wisconsin, circa 1900 to 1901. (Courtesy of the Wilder Family LLC and YCAL.)
The Wilder family in China, 1906: (front row, left to right) Isabella Thornton Niven Wilder, Amos Niven Wilder, Isabel Wilder, Charlotte Elizabeth Wilder, Thornton Niven Wilder, Amos Parker Wilder, and an unidentified man in the background. (Courtesy of the Wilder Family LLC and YCAL.)
Isabella Thornton Niven Wilder (front row, third from left) in China with members of the Ladies’ International Tea Cup Club. (Courtesy of the Wilder Family LLC and YCAL.)
Consul General Amos Parker Wilder and Wu Ting Fang, Chinese minister to Washington, April 4, 1908, Washington, D.C.; autographed by Wu Ting Fang: “May the two nations we represent remain friends forever.” (Courtesy of the Wilder Family LLC and YCAL.)
Thornton, Amos, Charlotte, Isabel, and Isabella, holding baby Janet, Berkeley, California, 1910. (Courtesy of the Wilder Family LLC and YCAL.)
Isabel, Thornton, Isabella, and Charlotte with little sister Janet in the center, Berkeley, California, 1914 or 1915. (Courtesy of the Wilder Family LLC and YCAL.)
Amos Parker Wilder with his sons, Amos and Thornton, New Haven, Connecticut, 1915 or 1916. (Courtesy of the Wilder Family LLC and YCAL.)
Thornton Niven Wilder at Oberlin College. (Courtesy of the Wilder Family LLC and YCAL.)
Thornton Niven Wilder, Yale student and U.S. Army Coast Artillery Corps corporal, Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island, World War I, 1918. (Courtesy of the Wilder Family LLC and YCAL.)
Thornton Wilder aboard a ship en route to Europe, 1928. (Courtesy of the Wilder Family LLC and YCAL.)
Gene Tunney and Thornton Wilder on their European journey, hiking in the French Alps at the Mer de Glace, October 28, 1928. (Courtesy of the Wilder Family LLC and YCAL.)
Isabel, Thornton, Isabella, and Janet in Surrey, England, celebrating the international success of The Bridge of San Luis Rey, 1928. (Courtesy of the Wilder Family LLC and YCAL.)
Isabel Wilder, 1933. (Courtesy of the Wilder Family LLC and YCAL.)
Charlotte Elizabeth Wilder, 1930s. (Courtesy of the Wilder Family LLC and YCAL.)
Janet Frances Wilder, Mount Holyoke graduation, 1933. (Courtesy of the Wilder Family LLC and YCAL.)
Amos Niven Wilder, 1930s. (Courtesy of the Wilder Family LLC and YCAL.)
Thornton and Isabel, 1933. (Courtesy of the Wilder Family LLC and YCAL.)
The house at 50 Deepwood Drive, Hamden, Connecticut, built by Thornton for his family. The Wilders called this “the house The Bridge built,” because Thornton’s royalties from the novel paid for the design and construction. (Courtesy of the Wilder Family LLC and YCAL.)
A page from the first manuscript draft of Our Town, 1937. (Courtesy of the Wilder Family LLC and YCAL.)
Thornton standing beside his Chrysler convertible with a rumble seat, his 1939 Christmas gift from producer Sol Lesser for his help with the film adaptation of Our Town. (Courtesy of the Wilder Family LLC and YCAL.)
Thornton Wilder with Ellen Weston and Robert Hock in Our Town, Williamstown Theatre, Williamstown, Massachusetts, 1959. This was Wilder’s final theatrical performance as the Stage Manager. (Photograph by William Tague. Courtesy of the Williamstown Theatre Festival.)
Lieutenant Colonel Wilder serving as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Army Air Forces, World War II, 1945. (Courtesy of the Wilder Family LLC and YCAL.)
The novelist, playwright, lecturer, and global citizen in midcareer, undated photograph. (Photograph by LeTrelle. Courtesy of the Wilder Family LLC and YCAL.)
Thornton Wilder and American actress and singer Ethel Waters after their arrival at West Berlin’s Tempelhof Airport, September 11, 1957, for performances in Wilder’s one-act plays at Congress Hall. (Photograph by Kreusch/AP Photo. Courtesy of AP Images.)
Wilder with Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin in Williamstown, 1959. (Photograph by William Tague. Courtesy of the Williamstown Theatre Festival.)
Thornton Wilder, the perennial traveler, on his way to board the train in New Haven for one more departure, May 1960. (Courtesy of the Wilder Family LLC and YCAL.)
Wilder receiving the first-ever National Medal for Literature from the National Book Committee, in a ceremony at the White House with Lady Bird John
son and Donald McGannon, television broadcasting executive and president of the National Book Committee, May 4, 1965. (Courtesy of the Wilder Family LLC and YCAL.)
Wilder sails for Italy aboard the American Export Lines SS Independence, November 18, 1955. (© Bettmann/CORBIS. Courtesy of CORBIS Images.)
He was a refined gypsy, wandering the world, writing, he said, for and about “Everybody.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PENELOPE NIVEN is the author of critically acclaimed biographies of poet Carl Sandburg and photographer Edward Steichen, as well as Swimming Lessons, a memoir, and Voices and Silences, coauthored with the actor James Earl Jones. She is the recipient of three fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Thornton Wilder Visiting Fellowship at the Beinecke Library at Yale, and other fellowships and awards. Niven lectures both in the United States and abroad, and she has served as a consultant for television films about Sandburg, Steichen, and Jones. She lives in North Carolina.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.
ALSO BY PENELOPE NIVEN
NONFICTION
Carl Sandburg: A Biography
Voices and Silences
(coauthor with James Earl Jones)
Steichen: A Biography
Swimming Lessons
NONFICTION FOR CHILDREN
Carl Sandburg: Adventures of a Poet
CREDITS
The author and the publisher gratefully acknowledge the consent of the Wilder Family LLC, courtesy of The Barbara Hogenson Agency, to print the published and unpublished writings of Thornton Wilder and the Wilder family, as well as the photographs of Thornton Wilder and the Wilder family.
Cover design by Richard Ljoenes
Cover photograph of Thornton Wilder playing the Stage Manager in Our Town courtesy of Special Collections, The College of Wooster Libraries
COPYRIGHT
THORNTON WILDER. Copyright © 2012 by Penelope Niven. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks.
Penelope Niven Page 100
