Thornton Wilder (114 page)

49.
TNW to Dwight Dana, April 26, 1939, Private Collection.

50.
TNW to Professor and Mrs. Max Reinhardt, July 28, 1939, Österreichisches Theatermuseum, Vienna.

51.
TNW to Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, [June 24, 1939?], YCAL.

52.
Isabel Wilder to Dwight Dana, August 15, 1939, Private Collection.

53.
TNW to Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, [August 20, 1939?], YCAL.

54.
Ibid.

55.
TNW to Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, September 11, 1939, YCAL.

56.
Ibid.

57.
Gertrude Stein to TNW, [postmarked October 1, 1939], TNW Collection, YCAL.

58.
TNW to Dwight Dana, September 23, 1939, Private Collection.

59.
TNW to Wilson Lehr, September 29, 1939, YCAL. Wilson Lehr was a 1939 graduate of the drama program at Yale. Cheryl Crawford was an organizing founder with Lee Strasberg and Howard Clurman of the Group Theatre on Broadway.

60.
As noted, Wilder never finished the adaptation of
The Beaux' Stratagem
. After his literary executor, Tappan Wilder, discovered the unfinished manuscript among his papers at the Beinecke Library, he persuaded the playwright Ken Ludwig to complete the adaptation. The Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C., gave the world premiere performance of the Farquhar-Wilder-Ludwig script on November 7, 2006. “Practical entertainment”: TNW to Wilson Lehr, November 26, 1939,
SL
, 370–71.

61.
TNW to Huntington T. Day [Dwight Dana's law partner], September 8, 1939, Private Collection.

62.
Ibid.

63.
TNW to Wilson Lehr, September 29, 1939, TNW Collection, YCAL.

64.
Readers interested in the making of the script and the film may read much of the Wilder-Lesser correspondence in
“
Our Town—From Stage to Screen: A Correspondence Between Thornton Wilder and Sol Lesser,” in McClatchy,
Thornton Wilder: Collected Plays & Writings on Theater
, 663–81.

65.
TNW to Sol Lesser, October 7, 1939, in McClatchy,
Thornton Wilder: Collected Plays & Writings on Theater,
663–65.

66.
TNW to Sol Lesser, October 9, 1939,
SL
, 368–70.

67.
TNW to Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, October 20, 1939, YCAL.

68.
“In solitary confinement”: TNW to Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, September 11, 1939, YCAL; “Hope and dread”: TNW to Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, October 29, 1939, YCAL.

69.
TNW to Wilson Lehr, November 26, 1939,
SL
, 370–71.

70.
TNW to Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, [November 18, 1939?], YCAL.

71.
Charlotte Wilder to ANW, [March 11, 1940?], TNW collection, YCAL, uncataloged letters.

72.
TNW to Edmund Wilson, January 13, 1940, YCAL.

73.
TNW to Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, January 28, 1940, YCAL.

74.
TNW to Edmund Wilson, February 23, 1940, YCAL.

75.
TNW to Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, January 28, 1940, YCAL.

76.
TNW to Sol Lesser, November 12, 1939, in McClatchy,
Thornton Wilder: Collected Plays & Writings on Theater,
671–72.

77.
Sol Lesser to TNW, March 21, 1940, TNW Collection, YCAL.

78.
TNW to Sol Lesser, [Easter Night 1940?],
SL
, 374–76.

79.
Sol Lesser to Isabel Wilder, December 4, 1939, TNW Collection, YCAL; Isabel Wilder to Sol Lesser, December 5, 1939, in McClatchy,
Thornton Wilder: Collected Plays & Writings on Theater,
672.

80.
TNW to Sol Lesser, December 26, 1939, in McClatchy,
Thornton Wilder: Collected Plays & Writings on Theater,
672.

81.
TNW to Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, January 28, 1940,
SL
, 371–74.

82.
TNW to Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, “Middle of March” [1940?], YCAL.

83.
Charlotte Wilder's share of the 1936 Shelley Memorial Award was $425. P. A. Scott, Trust Officer, Mary P. Sears Trust, to Charlotte Wilder, January 5, 1937, Private Collection.

84.
In his later books e. e. cummings became E. E. Cummings. Hugh Van Dusen to PEN, May 19, 2010.

85.
TNW to Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, January 28, 1940, YCAL.

86.
TNW, February 21, 1939, 1939–1941 Journal, TNW Collection, YCAL. Many passages from this journal and other TNW journals are published in Donald Gallup, ed.,
The Journals of Thornton Wilder 1939–1961
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), but many key passages, especially from 1940 onward, remain unpublished as of this writing.

87.
TNW, February 21, 1939, 1939–1941 Journal, TNW Collection, YCAL.

88.
Ibid.

89.
TNW to Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, “Middle of March” 1940, YCAL.

90.
Ibid.

91.
Ibid.

92.
Isabel Wilder to Dwight Dana, June 16, 1931, private collection.

93.
TNW to Alexander Woollcott, March 29, [1940], AWC, MS Am 1449 (1781), HLH.

94.
Ibid.

95.
TNW, 1939–1941 Journal, May 2, 1940, TNW Collection, YCAL.

96.
TNW to Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, May 3, 1940, YCAL.

97.
“Boston Welcomes
Our Town
After All Nation Has,”
New Haven Register,
May 24, 1940.

98.
Bosley Crowther, “The Screen: ‘Our Town' a Beautiful and Tender Picture, at the Music Hall . . . ,”
New York Times,
June 14, 1940, 25. Frank Craven played the Stage Manager on-screen as he had onstage. Martha Scott was Emily, receiving an Academy Award nomination as best actress. (Ginger Rogers won for
Kitty Foyle,
one of her few movies that didn't involve dancing.) The young William Holden, at the beginning of his film career, played George Gibbs, and the cast included Beulah Bondi, Fay Bainter, and Thomas Mitchell. Aaron Copland was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Score (which went to the music for Walt Disney's
Pinocchio
).

99.
“Vast and terrible events”: TNW to Richard Beer-Hofmann, August 6, 1940,
SL
, 377–78; “More in crisis than the last”: TNW to Sibyl Colefax, June 14, 1940,
SL
, 376–77.

 

28: “SEEING, KNOWING AND TELLING” (1940S)

1.
TNW to Edmund Wilson, June 3, 1940, YCAL. Wilson wrote several articles on Joyce, including a two-part article on
Finnegans Wake
that appeared in the
New Republic
in 1939.

2.
TNW to Edmund Wilson, June 15, 1940, YCAL.

3.
Ibid. “The Figure in the Carpet” is the title of a short story by Henry James in which a novelist observes that literary critics often miss his themes and intentions because they must be detected and deciphered like a subtle “figure” in a Persian carpet.

4.
Edmund Wilson to TNW, June 20, 1940, TNW Collection, YCAL.

5.
TNW to Edmund Wilson, June 26, 1940, YCAL.

6.
Edmund Wilson to TNW, June 20, 1940, TNW Collection, YCAL.

7.
TNW, 1939–41 Journal, July 6, 1940, TNW Collection, YCAL.

8.
TNW to Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, July 31, 1940, YCAL.

9.
TNW, 1939–41 Journal, May 23, 1940, TNW Collection, YCAL. As previously noted, while many entries from TNW's journals are published in Gallup,
The Journals of Thornton Wilder, 1939–1961
, many other entries, including this one, are unpublished at this writing.

10.
Ibid.

11.
TNW to Richard Beer-Hofmann, August 6, 1940,
SL
, 377–78.

12.
TNW, 1939–41 Journal, October 26, 1940, TNW Collection, YCAL. Later, in the final text of the play, Wilder changed the length of the Antrobus marriage to five thousand years.

13.
TNW to Max Reinhardt, December 17, 1940, Österreichisches Theatermuseum, Vienna.

14.
TNW, 1939–41 Journal, October 26, 1940, TNW Collection, YCAL.

15.
Ibid.

16.
Ibid.

17.
Ibid.

18.
TNW, 1939–41 Journal, November 1, 1940, TNW Collection, YCAL.

19.
TNW to Richard Beer-Hofmann, August 6, 1940,
SL
, 377–78.

20.
TNW to Rosemary Ames, December 6, 1940, YCAL.

21.
TNW to Alexander Woollcott, October 1940, AWC, MS Am 1449 (1781B), HLH.

22.
Ibid.

23.
Ibid.

24.
TNW to Rosemary Ames, December 6, 1940, YCAL.

25.
TNW to Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, July 31, 1940, YCAL.

26.
“Unknown Subjects: Austrian Refugee Camp,” Federal Bureau of Investigation File 65–1146, September 25, 1940, regarding July 19, 1940, Period. Obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

27.
“Thornton Niven Wilder, Unknown Subjects: Austrian Refugee Camp [Redacted] Estate Near Keene, New Hampshire,” Federal Bureau of Investigation File 65–265, January 9, 1941, regarding November 25, 26, 1940, to December 8, 1940/January 7, 1941, Period. Obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

28.
Ibid.

29.
“Re: Thornton Wilder,” Federal Bureau of Investigation File 65–1146, December 15, 1949. Obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

30.
These associations are listed in Wilder's FBI file. By 1954 all of these organizations had been declared suspect and/or subversive by the attorney general of the United States.

31.
TNW to Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, January 28, 1940,
SL
, 371–74. TNW also helped the Austrian author Hermann Broch; the Austrian dramatist and poet Richard Beer-Hofmann (writing the introduction of an English translation of Beer-Hofmann's play,
Jakobs Traum
, in 1946); and the Austrian critic and teacher Frederick (Friedrich) Lehner and his wife, among others.

32.
Eleanor Roosevelt's remarks and TNW remarks, “Prominent Writers' Statements of Why They Are for Franklin D. Roosevelt, Made on the Radio Program Presented Under the Auspices of The Women's Division of the Democratic National Committee, Friday, September 27, 1940,” Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, 2.

33.
TNW, 1939–41 Journal, October 2, 1940, TNW Collection, YCAL.

34.
TNW to Sibyl Colefax, September 26, 1940, New York University.

35.
TNW, 1939–41 Journal, October 26, 1940, TNW Collection, YCAL.

36.
Ibid.

37.
TNW, 1939–41 Journal, October 29, 1940, TNW Collection, YCAL.

38.
Ibid.

39.
TNW,
Theophilus North
, 4.

40.
An allusion to Gaetano Donizetti's comic opera,
The Daughter of the Regiment
(1840).

41.
TNW,
The Skin of Our Teeth
(New York: HarperPerennial, 2003), 14–15. Page references for
The Skin of Our Teeth
are from this edition. The reference to the rape in the Sabine Hills alludes to the legend that Roman soldiers kidnapped and raped Sabine women in order to increase the population of Rome. George Antrobus's alleged participation in these transgressions occurred in his youth, thousands of years in the distant past; of course, that is no excuse, as far as Maggie Antrobus is concerned.

42.
Ibid., 81–83.

43.
Ibid., 54.

44.
Ibid., 102–3.

45.
TNW, 1939–41 Journal, October 26, 1940, YCAL.

46.
Ibid.

47.
TNW, 1939–41 Journal, October 2, 1940, YCAL.

48.
TNW, 1939–41 Journal, November 3, 1940, YCAL.

49.
Ibid.

50.
Ibid.

51.
Ibid.

52.
TNW to Amy Wertheimer, November 13, 1940, TNW Collection, YCAL.

53.
TNW, 1939–41 Journal, November 3, 1940, YCAL.

54.
TNW to Isabella Niven Wilder and Isabel Wilder, November 6, 1940, TNW Collection, YCAL.

55.
Ibid.

56.
Ibid.

57.
TNW to Alexander Woollcott, November 8, 1940, AWC, MS Am 1449 (1781B), HLH.

58.
TNW to Alexander Woollcott, December 27, 1940, AWC, MS Am 1449 (1781B), HLH.