Q: Which Wilder biography would you recommend? And, for that matter, do you have any other suggestions for auxiliary reading about Wilder?
A:I recommend Gilbert Harrison's biography The Enthusiast: A Life of Thornton Wilder. (Fromm International, 1996) As for other books, I think Donald Haberman's The Plays of Thornton Wilder (Wesleyan University Press, 1967) is excellent; for plays and novels, Malcolm Goldstein's The Art of Thornton Wilder (University of Nebraska Press, 1965) is still very good. For more recent literary criticism on Wilder, check out the collection of articles Thornton Wilder: New Essays, edited by Martin Blank, Dalma Brunhauer, and David Garrett Izzo. (Locust Hill Press, 1999)
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©2003 Thornton Wilder Society
Professor Lincoln Konkle, our resident Wilder expert, is an Associate Professor of English at The College of New Jersey. He teaches courses in American drama and creative writing, as well as an undergraduate seminar on Thornton Wilder's drama and fiction. He has published articles and reviews on Wilder, Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee and a number of American writers. Currently he is working on a book showing the influence of American literary and cultural traditions, beginning in the seventeenth century, on Wilder's drama and fiction. If the questions seem of interest to our general audience, we will post both the question and answer here. One way or the other, you will get a response. We hope you enjoy this addition to our site, one which many of you have requested.