Robert E. Sherwood's dramatic works belong in the corpus of socially committed literature that was rooted in the ferment of the interwar period. A prolific playwright, Sherwood made a substantial contribution to American drama, averaging one play a year. Among these plays, Idiot's Delight (1936) and Abe Lincoln in Illinois (produced 1938; published 1939) won him Pulitzer Prizes and established him as one of the leading playwrights in the United States by 1939. Other professional contributions to American theater also included the formation of the Playwrights Company in 1937, which he cofounded with Elmer Rice, Sidney Howard, Maxwell Anderson, and S. N. Behrman. Initiated to produce their own plays and those of other playwrights, the company produced thirty-nine independent plays and twenty-nine in association with other managements from October 1938 until June 1961, when it finally dissolved. Additionally, Sherwood served as president of the Dramatic Guild and the American National Theatre and Academy. He won...