Thornton Wilder was a student of the human condition; in his writing he aimed for and achieved the universal. His plays in particular were concerned with both the timely and the timeless, and he most distinguished himself in the theater, although his...

On the strength of only three full-length plays and a bare handful of one-acts, Thornton Wilder ranks among the top half dozen playwrights in the history of American theater. The modest volume of his dramatic work is not the result of a limitation of...

On the strength of only three full-length plays and a bare handful of one-acts, Thornton Wilder ranks among the top half dozen playwrights in the history of American theatre. The modest volume of his dramatic work is the result not of a limitation of...

A noted dramatist, novelist, and essayist, Thornton Wilder's name is known to most U.S. high school and college students because of the fame of his play, Our Town. First performed before American theatergoers in 1937, Our Town would soon be produced...

Thornton Wilder, one of the last in the line of the New England puritan writers, was born in Madison, Wisconsin, on 17 April 1897. Second son of Amos Parker Wilder, a native of Maine and a descendant of New Englanders who had their roots in...

Novelist and playwright Thornton Niven Wilder (1897-1975) won two Pulitzer Prizes for his plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth, written in 1938 and 1942 respectively. His most renowned novel, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, also accorded him a Pulitzer...

Thornton Wilder, the only writer to receive Pulitzer Prizes for both plays and a novel, once observed, "I guess I was the only writer of my generation who didn't 'go to Paris!'" For him the road abroad led to Rome, which he first visited in the summer...