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Thornton Wilder (1897–1975)

Author of Our Town

121+ Works 16,106 Members 284 Reviews 22 Favorited

About the Author

One of the most honored and versatile of modern writers, Thornton Wilder combined a career as a successful novelist with work for the theater that made him one of this century's outstanding dramatists. It was an early short novel, however, that first brought him fame. The Bridge of San Luis Rey show more (1927), a bestseller that won the Pulitzer Prize in 1927, is the story of a group of assorted people who happen to be on a bridge in Peru when it collapses. Ingeniously constructed and rich in its philosophical implications about fate and synchronicity, Wilder's book would seem to be the first well-known example of a formula that has become a cliche in popular literature. His attraction to classical themes is manifested in The Woman of Andros (1930), a tragedy about young love in pre-Christian Greece, and The Ides of March (1948), set in the time of Julius Caesar and told in letters and documents covering a long span of years. Heaven's My Destination (1934), is a seriocomic and picaresque story about a young book salesman traveling through the Midwest during the early years of the Great Depression.Theophilus North (1973), Wilder's last novel, disappointed many reviewers, but it provided its author with opportunities to offer some wry observations on the life of the idle rich in Newport during the summer of 1926 and to ponder in the story of his alter ego what might have happened if Wilder had stayed home, so to speak, instead of becoming Thornton Wilder. As a serious writer of fiction, Wilder's main claim rests on The Eighth Day (1967), an intellectual thriller, which the N.Y. Times called "the most substantial fiction of his career." It won the National Book Award for fiction in 1968. (Bowker Author Biography) show less

Series

Works by Thornton Wilder

Our Town (1938) 5,025 copies
The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927) 4,731 copies
Three Plays by Thornton Wilder (1938) 1,205 copies
The Ides of March (1948) 933 copies
The Eighth Day (1967) 673 copies
Theophilus North (1973) 498 copies
The Skin of Our Teeth (1942) 400 copies
Heaven's My Destination (1935) 193 copies
The Cabala (1926) 153 copies
The Matchmaker (1955) 144 copies
Shadow of a Doubt [1943 film] (1943) — Screenwriter — 139 copies
The Woman of Andros (1930) 117 copies
Our Town | The Skin of Our Teeth (1982) — Author — 29 copies
The Long Christmas Dinner (1933) — Author — 29 copies
Pullman Car Hiawatha (1931) 15 copies
Queens of France (1931) 8 copies
The Drunken Sisters (1957) 6 copies
The Seven Deadly Sins (2012) 4 copies
The Ages of Man (2012) 2 copies
Obras escogidas 2 copies
Plays 2 copies
Lesebuch (1985) 2 copies
Drámák (1981) 2 copies
Alcestiad (1977) 2 copies
Idi di marzo 1 copy
Insurgent 1 copy
Our Town (HHH Production) — Author — 1 copy
Drammi brevi 1 copy
Someone From Assisi (2014) 1 copy
Thornton Wilder Stories — Author — 1 copy
Fanny Otcott 1 copy
Brother Fire 1 copy
The Angel on the Ship (1928) 1 copy
The Wreck on the 5 25 (2014) 1 copy
Centaurs 1 copy
Leviathan 1 copy

Associated Works

Oedipus Rex (0429) — Introduction, some editions — 6,560 copies
A Doll's House (1879) — Translator, some editions — 5,422 copies
24 Favorite One Act Plays (1958) — Contributor — 282 copies
Famous American Plays of the 1940s (1900) — Contributor — 229 copies
Hello, Dolly! [1969 film] (1969) — Original play — 210 copies
This Is My Best (1942) — Contributor — 186 copies
Sixteen Famous American Plays (1777) — Playwright — 182 copies
Stories to Remember {complete} (1956) — Contributor — 181 copies
Stories to Remember, Volume II (1956) — Contributor — 125 copies
One Act: Eleven Short Plays of the Modern Theater (1961) — Contributor — 106 copies
Contemporary Drama: 15 Plays (1959) — Contributor — 69 copies
10 Short Plays (1963) — Contributor — 62 copies
The Victors (1984) — Translator, some editions — 54 copies
Jacob's Dream (1946) — Introduction, some editions — 46 copies
Contemporary Drama - 11 Plays (1956) — Contributor — 46 copies
Best American Plays: Fourth Series, 1951-1957 (1958) — Contributor — 42 copies
The Modern Theatre, Volume 4 (1956) — Contributor — 35 copies
Hello, Dolly! A Musical Play (1964) — Original story — 35 copies
XII Twelve Short Novels (1961) — Contributor — 34 copies
50 Best Plays of the American Theatre [4-volume set] (1969) — Contributor — 32 copies
15 International One-Act Plays (1969) — Contributor — 31 copies
Theatre Experiment (1967) — Contributor — 29 copies
The Signet Book of Short Plays (2004) — Contributor — 28 copies
13 Plays of Ghosts and the Supernatural (1990) — Contributor — 28 copies
Our Town [1940 film] (2000) — Original play — 28 copies
Hello, Dolly! Original 1964 Broadway Cast Recording (1964) — Original play — 27 copies
The Bridge of San Luis Rey [2004 film] (2004) — Original book — 24 copies
Twentieth-Century American Drama (2000) — Contributor — 22 copies
The Twelve Plays of Christmas (2000) — Contributor — 16 copies
Our Town [2003 TV movie] (2003) — Original play — 14 copies
Mr. North [1988 film] (2003) — Original play — 5 copies
The Matchmaker [1958 film] (1958) — Original play — 5 copies
Thornton Wilder's Our Town [1989 TV episode] (2005) — Play — 4 copies
50 Best Plays of the American Theatre, Volume 2 (1969) — Contributor — 3 copies
Teatro Norteamericano contemporaneo — Contributor — 2 copies
The Undying Past (1961) — Contributor — 2 copies
Teatru American Contemporan vol. 1 — Contributor — 1 copy
The Bridge of San Luis Rey [1944 film] — Original novel — 1 copy
Short Plays for Reading and Acting (1970) — Contributor — 1 copy

Tagged

(83) 19th century (83) 20th century (199) American (193) American literature (472) Ancient Greece (80) anthology (205) classic (494) classic literature (73) classics (625) death (73) drama (1,647) feminism (78) fiction (1,989) Greece (92) Greek (197) Greek literature (97) historical fiction (179) Library of America (99) literature (604) Norway (72) Norwegian literature (77) novel (353) own (106) Peru (188) play (764) plays (979) Pulitzer (100) Pulitzer Prize (153) read (260) script (106) short stories (76) Sophocles (80) South America (68) theatre (658) Thornton Wilder (97) to-read (639) tragedy (214) unread (82) USA (83)

Common Knowledge

Canonical name
Wilder, Thornton
Legal name
Wilder, Thornton Niven
Birthdate
1897-04-17
Date of death
1975-12-07
Burial location
Mount Carmel Cemetery, Hamden, Connecticut, USA
Gender
male
Nationality
USA
Birthplace
Madison, Wisconsin, USA
Place of death
Hamden, Connecticut, USA
Places of residence
Chefoo, China
Ojai, California, USA
Berkeley, California, USA
Douglas, Arizona, USA
Madison, Wisconsin, USA
Hamden, Connecticut, USA
Education
Princeton University (MA|French|1926)
Yale University (BA|1920)
Oberlin College
American Academy in Rome
Berkeley High School
Creekside Middle School (show all 8)
China Inland Mission Chefoo School
The Thacher School
Occupations
playwright
novelist
professor
translator
librettist
teacher (show all 12)
screenwriter
short-story writer
essayist
corporal (U.S. Army Coast Artillery Corps, WWI)
lieutenant colonel (U.S. Army Air Force Intelligence, WWII)
actor
Relationships
Wilder, Amos Niven (brother)
Wilder, Isabel (sister)
Dakin, Janet Wilder (sister)
Wilder, A. Tappan (nephew)
Wilder, Charlotte (sister)
Organizations
American Academy of Arts and Letters
Modern Language Association of America (honorary member)
Authors Guild
Actors Equity Association
Hispanic Society of America (corresponding member)
Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur (West Germany) (show all 20)
Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts (honorary member)
Century Association
Players (honorary member)
Graduate Club
Elizabethan Club
Alpha Delta Phi
United States Army (WWI ∙ WWII)
Harvard University (Charles Eliot Norton professor)
University of Chicago (professor)
Institut de Cooperation Intellectuélle ( [1937])
United States Department of State
International PEN Club Congress ( [1941])
UNESCO Conference of Arts ( [1952])
Lawrenceville School, Lawrenceville, New Jersey, USA (teacher)
Awards and honors
Presidential Medal of Freedom (1963)
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (1927)
Pulitzer Prize for Drama (1938, 1943)
Chevalier, Legion of Honor (1951)
National Book Committee's National Medal for Literature (1965)
Edward MacDowell Medal (1960) (show all 21)
National Book Award for fiction (1968)
Peace Prize of the German Book Trade (1957)
Friedenspreis, Deutschen Buchhandels (1957)
Sonderpreis (1959)
Goethe medal (1959)
Gold Medal for Fiction, American Academy of Arts and Letters (1952)
Brandeis University Creative Arts Award for theater and film (1959-60)
Chicago Literary Hall of Fame (2013)
Medal of the Order of Merit (Peru)
Order of Merit (West Germany)
Century Association Art Medal
Honorary member of Order of the British Empire (M.B.E.)
Legion of Merit
Bronze Star
Alpha Delta Phi
Short biography
Thornton Wilder was born on April 17, 1897 in Madison, Wisconsin to Isabella (Niven) Wilder and Amos Parker Wilder. He attended Oberlin College (1915-1917), received an A.B. from Yale University (1920), attended the American Academy in Rome (1920-1921), and received an A.M. from Princeton University (1926). He served in the U.S. Army from 1942-1945, receiving the Legion of Merit and Bronze Star.

Wilder is best known as an author of novels, plays, and screenplays. Among his many published novels and plays, he wrote three Pulitzer Prize winning works: The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1928), Our Town (1938), and The Skin of Our Teeth (1943). He also won the Gold Medal for fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1952), the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1963), the National Book Committee's National Medal for Literature (1965), and the National Book Award (1968).

Wilder was a lecturer in comparative literature at the University of Chicago (1930-1936), a visiting professor at the University of Hawaii (1935), and Charles Eliot Norton Professor of poetry at Harvard University (1950-1951).

Wilder received honorary degrees from New York University, Yale University, Kenyon College, College of Wooster, Harvard University, Northeastern University, Oberlin College, University of New Hampshire, and University of Zurich.

Thornton Wilder died in 1975

Members

Reviews

The Eighth Day is a 1967 novel by Thornton Wilder. Set in a mining town in southern Illinois, the plot revolves around John Barrington Ashley, who is accused of murdering his neighbor Breckenridge Lansing. The novel was written over the course of twenty months while Wilder was living alone in Douglas, Arizona. The Eighth Day was the 1968 winner of the National Book Award.
 
Flagged
RedeemedRareBooks | 12 other reviews | Mar 6, 2024 |
“Either we live by accident and die by accident, or we live by plan and die by plan.”

The finest footbridge in Peru, the bridge of San Luis Rey, breaks and five people die. Brother Juniper witnessed the tragedy and is resolved to investigate and understand why those five met with that fate.
Doña María and Pepita. Esteban. Uncle Pio and Don Jamie.

Beautifully written, with flowery language and a strong sense of place and people of Lima and the places around it. Definitely glad that I finally read this!

And what an ending!:

"But soon we shall die and all the memory of those five will have left the earth, and we ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning."
… (more)
½
 
Flagged
Stahl-Ricco | 118 other reviews | Jan 20, 2024 |
Acting: 5.0; Theme: 5.0; Content: 4.5; Language: 5.0; Overall: 5.0

A young teenage girl, Charlie Newton, (Teresa Wright) is ecstatic when she learns her Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotten) is coming for a visit to their small California town. However, Charlie becomes very suspicious of him as she begins noticing clues that he might be the "Merry Widow" murderer. Very suspenseful and Hitchcockian. Highly recommend.

***December 26, 2023***
 
Flagged
jntjesussaves | 4 other reviews | Dec 26, 2023 |
In this LOA volume, rather than his earlier work focused on playwriting, his literary work included several novels such as "The Eighth Day", "Theophilus North" & the 3 unpublished manuscripts. Rarely does one see a writer range from playwriting to novels. At least, these are humorous look in some cases, poking fun at himself.
 
Flagged
walterhistory | Dec 22, 2023 |

Lists

1970s (1)
1940s (1)
AP Lit (1)
1930s (1)
1920s (1)

Awards

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Associated Authors

Alma Reville Screenwriter
Sally Benson Screenwriter
Tappan Wilder Afterword, Introduction
John Gassner Contributor
Julie Vatain Traduction
Sándor Filep Illustrator
Monteiro Lobato Translator
L. De Bosis Traduttore
Dídac Teixidor Translator
Gerd Grimm Cover artist
Eric Fuentecilla Cover designer
Simon Koene Illustrator
Maurice Rémon Traduction
Mark Cohen Cover designer
Kay Boyle Introduction
Rockwell Kent Illustrator
J. M. McNeill Introduction
Clare Leighton Illustrator
Maugham William Illustrator
Maarten de Jong jr Illustrator
Janez Gradišnik Translator
Lawrence Butcher Illustrator
Laura Colan Cover Photographer
Milan Bozic Cover designer
Dan Reed Cover artist
Enn Soosaar TÕlkija.
Frank Martin Illustrator
Jean Charlot Illustrator
Sam Waterson Narrator
Granville Hicks Introduction
Russell Banks Foreword
Amy Drevenstedt Illustrator
Brigitte Jakobeit Übersetzer
Robert Nix Cover designer
Peter Bergsma Translator
Ines Buhofer Nachwort
Alex Tsao Illustrator
Kurt Vonnegut Foreword
Fernanda Pivano Translator
Morag Sims Narrator
Peter Noble Narrator
Jane Copland Narrator
Ernest Riera Translator
Derek Perkins Narrator
Joan Walker Narrator
Piper Goodeve Narrator
Gary Furlong Narrator
Ernest Folch Translator
Brooks Atkinson Introduction
Malcolm Cowley Introduction
Hans Sahl Translator
Vappu Roos Translator
Henning Boehlke Cover designer
Wilhelm Rossi Foreword
Willi Klar Photographer
F. J. O'Neil additional materials
John Guare Introduction
Isabel Wilder Foreword

Statistics

Works
121
Also by
51
Members
16,106
Popularity
#1,411
Rating
½ 3.7
Reviews
284
ISBNs
399
Languages
15
Favorited
22

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