Books with author Thornton Wilder

A restored facsimile dust jacket for the 1st edition book of THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY by Thornton Wilder published by Charles Boni in 1927 -The jacket was restored by artist John Anthony Miller and archival ink and special paper were used. Jacket comes trimmed and enclosed in a Mylar jacket protector, ready to put on the book. As in all our facsimile dust jackets, the verso of the jacket has an affixed label, stating such, signed by the artist-restorer John Anthony Miller.

In a long and immensely productive lifetime Thornton Wilder gave us not only a series of major novels, but three plays that, for generations of theater goers, have provided direct, coherent and powerful statements on the human condition. Both OUR TOWN and THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH were awarded the Pulitzer Prize; both are acclaimed as theater classics, both have been revived recently to critical acclaim. THE MERCHANT OF YONKERS was a commercial failure in 1938; a generation later, as THE MATCHMAKER, it was a hit; as the basis of the musical HELLO DOLLY!, it was a resounding success. Shortly before Wilder's death, THE NEW YORK TIMES said, "Wilder's plays are now more than ever in rhythm with our changing habit of theatergoing...He relates the moment to eternity, seeks the infinite in the immediate, finds the universe in each grain of wheat. His plays have not so much been 'revived' over and over again as they have almost continuously stayed alive among us."

"On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travelers into the gulf below." With this celebrated sentence, Thornton Wilder begins The Bridge of San Luis Rey, one of the towering achievements in American fiction and a novel read throughout the world. By chance, a monk witnesses the tragedy. Brother Juniper seeks to prove that it was divine intervention rather than chance that led to the deaths of those who perished in the tragedy. His study leads to his own death -- and to the author's timeless investigation into the nature of love and the meaning of the human condition. The Bridge of San Luis Rey is now reissued in this handsome hardcover edition featuring a new foreword by Russell Banks. Tappan Wilder has written an engaging and thought-provoking afterword, which includes unpublished notes for the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, illuminating photographs, and other remarkable documentary material. Granville Hicks's insightful comment about Wilder suggests an inveterate truth: "As a craftsman he is second to none, and there are few who have looked deeper into the human heart."