Wilder, Thornton, 1897-1975

Thornton Wilder (1897-1975), novelist and playwright.

Thornton Wilder was an American playwright, novelist, and essayist.

American playwright.

American author and playwright.

Thornton Wilder (1897-1975) was an American author and three-time Pulitzer Prize winner. Among his best-known works are the novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey and the play Our Town .

Thornton Wilder (1897-1975) was a noted American playwright and novelist. His plays include Our Town (1938), The Skin of Our Teeth (1942), and The Matchmaker (1954)-later adapted to film as Hello, Dolly!'. His novels include The Cabala (1926), The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927), The Ides of March (1948), The Eighth Day (1967), and others. The correspondence reveals very little information about the donor. Everett W. Gibbs taught English at Fullerton College from 1957-1960 and at an unnamed school in Minneapolis for many years. It is clear that he was an aspiring writer. In 1959 he was at work on a thesis on sexual imagery in Shakespeare and completed a manuscript for a novel titled Forty Days and Forty Nights in 1970. In the early seventies Gibbs moved to Nome, Alaska. In 1992 he was living in Portland, Oregon.

Thornton Wilder, playwright.

American novelist and playwright.

American author and dramatist.

Alma Mahler mentions her friendship with Wilder in her memoir Mein Leben; they seem to have met late in 1950. The correspondence indicates that he frequently visited her in New York City. Murdock was a theater critic who wrote a review for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

A biographical timeline is provided in the register for the Thornton Wilder Papers (YCAL MSS 108).

Thornton Wilder was a successful American novelist, dramatist, and academic. His Puritan roots were reflected in a style that was innovative, technically adept, intellectual, and accessible. He is the only writer to receive the Pulitzer Prize for both novels and plays.

Author and playwright, of Hamden, Conn.

Thornton Niven Wilder, American playwright and novelist.

American author.

The life of Thornton Wilder has been documented in several books, including Richard Henry Goldstone's Thornton Wilder, an Intimate Portrait (Saturday Review Press, 1975); Linda Simon's Thornton Wilder: His World (Doubleday, 1979); and Gilbert A. Harrison's The Enthusiast (Ticknor & Fields, 1983). The following is a brief timeline pinpointing key events in his life: 1897 April 17, born in Madison, Wisconsin, 3rd child of Amos Parker Wilder and Isabel Niven Wilder. 1906 moves with family to Hong Kong when Amos is appointed American Consul General; returns with mother and children to Berkeley, California. 1911-1912 in China; attends China Inland Mission School in Chefoo, China. 1912-1913 attends Thacher School in Ojai, California. 1915 graduates from Berkeley High School, Berkeley, California. Enters Oberlin College in the fall. 1915-1917 Oberlin College. On Editorial Board of Oberlin Literary Magazine; publishes several short plays later collected in The Angel that Troubled the Waters . 1917 enters Yale College. 1918-1919 serves in U. S. Coast Guard Artillery for eight months. Returns to Yale. On Editorial Board of Yale Literary Magazine, which publishes his first long play, The Trumpet Shall Sound, as a serial. 1920 Graduates from Yale College. 1920-1921 at the American Academy in Rome; attends archaeology courses while writing The Cabala . 1921-1924 June Assistant Master in French at Lawrenceville School, New Jersey 1925 MA in French Literature, Princeton; summer at the MacDowell Colony. To Europe. 1926 In Europe; returns to Lawrenceville in the fall as Master of Davis House. The Cabala published. The Trumpet Shall Sound produced, American Laboratory Theatre, New York. 1927 November The Bridge of San Luis Rey published. 1928 The Bridge of San Luis Rey receives the Pulitzer Prize; The Angel that Troubled the Waters published. Resigns from Lawrenceville in June 1928 and travels to Europe. 1929 First major lecture tour on his return to the United States. 1930 The Woman of Andros published. Accepts appointment as lecturer in Comparative Literature, University of Chicago. 1930-1936 Teaches at Chicago for one semester each year; spends the remainder of the years on cross-country lecture tours and as a script writer in Hollywood. 1932 The Long Christmas Dinner published. 1933 Guest lecturer, University of Hawaii. Lucrece (adaptation of André Obey's Le viol de Lucrèce ) produced in New York by Guthrie McClintic and published. 1935 Heaven's My Destination published. Meets Gertrude Stein in Chicago. 1936 Resigns from University of Chicago and returns to Europe briefly. 1937 Adaptation of Ibsen's A Doll's House presented in New York by Jed Harris. 1938 Our Town produced by Jed Harris in Provincetown, Boston, and New York. Our Town receives the Pulitzer Prize. The Merchant of Yonkers opens in Boston in December, produced by the Theatre Guild. 1941 State Department cultural mission to Latin America; returns to England. Essay on James Joyce published in Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. Returns to the University of Chicago. 1942 Writes screenplay of "The Shadow of a Doubt" for Alfred Hitchcock. Enlists in Air Force and enters training in May. The Skin of Our Teeth opens in October in New Haven; in late November in New York. 1943 The Skin of Our Teeth receives the Pulitzer Prize. 1944-1945 Serves with U.S. Air Corps Intelligence in Africa and Italy. Receives rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Awarded Bronze Star, Legion of Merit, Military Order of the British Empire. Separated from service late 1945. 1948 The Ides of March published. 1949 Lectured Göethe Festival, Aspen, Colorado. 1950-1951 Holds Charles Eliot Norton Professorship at Harvard. Lectures on "The American Characteristics in Classic American Literature". 1952 Gold Medal for the novel, the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Chief of the American Delegation to the UNESCO Conference of the Arts, Venice. 1954 The Matchmaker premieres at the Edinburgh Festival in August and opens in London in November. 1955 The Alcestiad premieres at the Edinburgh Festival. The Matchmaker opens in New York in late November, produced by David Merrick. 1956-1962 Wilder travels frequently throughout the United States, making long stays in both Florida and Arizona. Continues to work on the libretto for the Alcestiad as well as on two cycles of one-act plays: The Seven Deadly Sins and The Long Christmas Dinner . 1958 Film of The Matchmaker appears. 1961 The Long Christmas Dinner, with music by Paul Hindemith, first produced in Germany. 1962 The Alcestiad, with music by Louise Talma, first produced in Germany. 1968 The Eighth Day published. 1973 Theophilus North published. 1975 December 7 Thornton Wilder dies in Hamden, Connecticut.

Waldo Greene was born ca. 1906 and died in 1994. At age seventeen he was a student of Thornton Wilder, then a French teacher at an exclusive prep school in New Jersey. Greene, a seventeen year old student at the time Wilder taught him, came to Texas after World War II, married and remained in the Rio Grande Valley.

Greene spent much of his life seeking details about his former teacher's life and collecting memorabilia about him. He corresponded with Wilder and Wilder's sister after Wilder's death.

Thornton Wilder (1897-1975), novelist and playwright.

Leonard Trolley (1917-2005), stage and film actor, married June Greeve while both were serving with the Royal Air Force in Italy during World War II. The Trolleys moved to New York City after the war but soon returned to England, where Leonard continued his acting career and June taught social sciences at Brooklands College until her 1983 retirement.

Biography

Thornton Wilder (1897-1975) was a noted American playwright and novelist. His plays include Our Town (1938), The Skin of Our Teeth (1942), and The Matchmaker (1954)--later adapted to film as "Hello, Dolly!". His novels include The Cabala (1926), The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927), The Ides of March (1948), The Eighth Day (1967), and others. In his work, Wilder sought out universal values regardless of the place or time of the setting. As a playwright he was very innovative, discarding props and scenery and making his characters address the audience directly.