Thornton Wilder

Popular and critically acclaimed American writer Thornton Wilder (1897–1975) was a three-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize (for his novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey and for his plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth). Niven (writer in residence, Salem Coll.; Carl Sandburg: A Biography) had access to previously unavailable primary materials both from Wilder's sister's extensive accumulation of materials, now at Yale's Beinecke Library, and from his nephew and literary executor, who made more information available, thus enabling readers to gain deeper understanding of Wilder the man and Wilder the scholar. Although Wilder is at the center of this work, it relates very much to his family as well, providing the most complete, in-depth portrait of the author to date. Niven presents a detailed picture of Wilder from his youthful writing attempts to his success as a mature novelist and playwright who counted F. Scott Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein as friends.