Selected Letters, Volume LL: 1945-1957

by Albert J. Devlin and Tennessee Williams

Book Overview

Volume I of The Selected Letters of Tennessee Williams ends with the unexpected triumph of The Glass Menagerie . Volume II extends the correspondence from 1946 to 1957, a time of intense creativity which saw the production of A Streetcar Named Desire , The Rose Tattoo , Camino Real , and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof . Following the immense success of Streetcar , Williams struggles to retain his prominence with a prodigious outpouring of stories, poetry, and novels as well as plays. Several major film projects, including the notorious Baby Doll , bring Williams and his collaborator Elia Kazan into conflict with powerful agencies of censorship, exposing both the conservative landscape of the 1950s and Williams' own studied resistance to the forces of conformity. Letters written to Kazan, Carson McCullers, Gore Vidal, publisher James Laughlin, and Audrey Wood, Williams' resourceful agent, continue earlier lines of correspondence and introduce new celebrity figures. The Broadway and Hollywood successes in the evolving career of America's premier dramatist vie with a string of personal losses and a deepening depression to make this period an emotional and artistic rollercoaster for Tennessee. Compiled by leading Williams scholars Albert J. Devlin, Professor of English at the University of Missouri, and Nancy M. Tischler, Professor Emerita of English at the Pennsylvania State University, Volume II maintains the exacting standard of Volume I , called by Choice : "a volume that will prove indispensable to all serious students of this author...meticulous annotations greatly increase the value of this gathering."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0811217221
• ISBN13: 9780811217224
• Release Date: September 2007
• Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
• Length: 662 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.3" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

A must have for Tennessee Williams fans

These letters of Tennessee Williams offer a rare insight into the private life of Tennessee Williams.

Covers the Most Productive Years of his Life

This is the second volume of correspondence of Tennessee Williams covering the most productive middle years of his life. It includes letters to and from friends during what was his most productive time. This when he was writing some of his best works, and the letters reflect the difficulties he was having with the work in process. These letters end in 1957 when he had just had two failed plays and the ever present critics were predicting the end of his career. The book also includes a running commentary on the letters to keep them in perspective to the actuall happenings in his life. As a result, they form a sort of autobiography of the great dramatist.