Henry McBride series in modernism and modernity

The friendship and correspondence of Gertrude Stein and Thornton Wilder encompassed the last twelve years of Stein's life and a period of major work by Wilder. A generation apart in age, the two writers met during Stein's acclaimed American lecture tour in 1934-35, during which they shared the experience of lecturing to audiences in the wake of great success. They quickly became mentor and pupil as well as friends, and Wilder eloquently passed on what Stein taught him through his introductions to her books. While Wilder supported Stein's efforts at publication, she held him to his vocation as a writer, urging him to ignore the distractions incurred by family and fortune. . The letters between Stein and Wilder contain ideas and plans about publications, attitudes toward fame and work, and thoughts about other artists and people near to them. They also refer to European-American cultural relations prior to and through World War II, show how Stein and Wilder responded to critical reception of their new work, and above all, examine how the two writers affected one another's progress. It is clear from the letters that without their friendship, Stein's Narration lectures would not have come about, The Geographical History and the novel Ida would have become different books, and Wilder's Our Town might not have become the play we know. The edition, fully annotated by Edward M. Burns and Ulla E. Dydo, includes a detailed chronology of Stein's lecture tour prepared by William Rice, staging histories of Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth, and an account of Stein in World War II with new documentation.

"From 1935 to 1939, Eugene O'Neill devoted nearly all of his creative energy to a vast cycle of plays that would trace the history of an American family through several generations. In showing the corrupting influence of material things upon its members, O'Neill would provide "a prophetic epitome for the course of American destiny." Quoting extensively from unpublished notes, outlines, scenarios, and drafts, and incorporating detailed plot summaries, this book tells for the first time the complicated story of the cycle project. It shows what the dramatist tried to do, how he went about it, and why in the end he failed."--BOOK JACKET.

"This collection of her letters has been culled from the estimated ten thousand she wrote during her long life. The more than two hundred selected letters follow this spirited author, critic, and journalist from her first feminist campaign for woman suffrage when she was a teenager through her reassessments of the twentieth century written in 1982, in her ninetieth year.". "The letters, which are presented in full, include correspondence with West's famous lover H.G. Wells and with Shaw, Virginia Woolf, Emma Goldman, Noel Coward, and many others; offer pronouncements on such contemporary authors as Norman Mailer, Nadine Gordimer, and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.; and provide new insights into her battles against misogyny, fascism, and communism. West deliberately fashions her own biography through this intensely personal correspondence, challenging rival accounts of her groundbreaking professional career, her frustrating love life, and her tormented family relations."--BOOK JACKET.