Three Plays - (Perennial Classics) by Thornton Wilder (Paperback)

About the Book

Originally published: New York: Harper & Row, 1957.

Book Synopsis

"Thornton Wilder will survive. . . as long as there are people around who are willing to sit in something called a theater and be reminded of their common humanity." --New York Times

From celebrated Pulitzer Prize-winning author and playwright Thornton Wilder, three of the greatest plays in American literature together in one volume: Our Town, The Skin of Our Teeth, and The Matchmaker. This essential compendium includes a preface by the author, as well as a foreword by playwright John Guare.

Our Town, Wilder's timeless Pulitzer Prize-winning classic about love, death, and destiny, opened on Broadway in 1938 and continues to be celebrated and performed on stages all around the world.

The Skin of our Teeth, Wilder's brilliant and enduring romp about human follies and human endurance starring the Antrobus family of Excelsior, New Jersey, earned Wilder his third Pulitzer Prize in 1943.

The Matchmaker, a dazzling farce about money and love, stars the irrepressible busybody Dolly Gallagher Levi, who leads young and old on an adventure that changes their lives. It was later adapted into the famed musical Hello, Dolly!

Review Quotes

Praise for Our Town: "Wilder has transmuted the simple events of human life into universal reverie. He has given familiar facts a deeply moving, philosophical perspective.... Our Town is one of the finest achievements of the...stage." - Brooks Atkinson
"Its astringent distillation of life and death in the fictional early-20th-century town of Grover's Corners, N.H., is desperately needed...so Americans can remember who we are.... The true American faith endures in Our Town." - New York Times
Praise for The Skin of Our Teeth: "It is not easy to think of any other American play with so good a chance of being acted a hundred years from now." - Atlantic Monthly
"Thornton Wilder will survive....as long as there are people around who are willing to sit in something called a theater and be reminded of their common humanity." - New York Times
Praise for The Matchmaker: "Loud, slap dash, and uproarious...extraordinarily original and funny." - New York Times