Thornton Niven Wilder
(1897 - 1975) U.S.A.
Novelist
Thornton Wilder was a gay playwright and writer. Wilder is best known for his masterpiece Our Town. On April 16th of 1997, the United State Postal Service issued a 32-cent stamp honoring Wilder; no mention was made of his gayness, of course.
Wilder was born in Wisconsin, reared in China and the US, and after graduation from Yale (1920) became a teacher at the Lawrenceville School (1921-28) and a professor of English at the University of Chicago (1930-36). His first book, The Cabala (1926), is a gracefully written and deftly ironic noel, concerning the sophisticated but decaying Italian nobility of the post-WWII period. He won several literay prizes, both for his novels and plays. He was the first person to be awarded a National Medal for Literature (1965).
Work:
- The Cabala (1926)
- The Trumpet Shall Sound (1926)
- The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927, Pulitzer Price)
- The Angel that Troubled the Waters (1928)
- The Woman of Andros (1930)
- The Long Christmas Dinner (1931)
- Heaven's My Destination (1935)
- Our Town (1938, Pulitzer Price)
- The Merchant of Yonkers (1938)
- The Skin of Our Teeth (1942, Pulitzer Price)
- The Ides of March (1948)
- The Matchmaker (1954, from which the musical Hello Dolly!, 1963)
- A Life in the Sun (1955)
- Plays for Bleeker Street (1962)
- The Eight Day (1967, National Book Award)
- Theophilus North (1973)
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