Thornton Wilder was the rare writer whose achievements as a playwright
were matched by equal abilities as a novelist. As companion to its
volume of Wilder's collected plays, The Library of America's edition of
his early novels and stories brings together five novels that highlight
his wit, erudition, innovative formal structures, and philosophical
wisdom.
Drawing on the post-collegiate year he spent in Rome, Wilder fashioned
in The Cabala a tale of youthful enchantment with the Eternal City in
the form of a fictitious memoir of an American student and the enigmatic
coterie of noble Romans who draw him into their midst. He followed this
debut novel two years later with The Bridge of San Luis Rey, which
catapulted him to literary prominence and earned him the first of his
three Pulitzer prizes. Set in 18th-century Peru, the book is a kind of
theological detective story concerning a friar's investigations into the
lives of five individuals before they were killed in a bridge collapse.
An elegantly told parable, with credible historical ambience and
psychologically rounded characters, The Bridge of San Luis Rey is
primarily a probing inquiry into the nature of destiny: Why did God
allow these particular people to die?
The Woman of Andros, based on the Andria of Roman writer Terence, is
a meditation on the ancient world filtered through the sensibility of a
meditative courtesan; Heaven's My Destination, a departure from
Wilder's historical themes, is a picaresque romp through Depression-era
America; and The Ides of March takes up the story of Julius Caesar's
assassination by imagining the exchange of letters among such prominent
ancient figures as Catullus, Cleopatra, Cicero, and Caesar himself,
groping in the open seas of his unlimited power for the first principles
which should guide him. The volume concludes with a selection of early
short stories--among them Précautions Inutiles, published here for the
first time--and a selection of essays that offers Wilder's insights into
the works of Stein and Joyce, as well as a lecture on letter writers
that bears on both The Bridge of San Luis Rey and The Ides of March.
LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization
founded in 1979 to preserve our nation's literary heritage by
publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America's best and most
significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than
300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in
length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are
printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.
