Tennessee williams biography sparknotes the great wall

American playwright (1911–1983)

Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), known by his pen label Tennessee Williams, was an American 1 and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Metropolis O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he remains considered among the three foremost playwrights of 20th-century American drama.^[1]

At age 33, after years of obscurity, Williams abruptly became famous with the success get the message The Glass Menagerie (1944) in Contemporary York City. It was the labour of a string of successes, with A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), Sweet Bird of Youth (1959), very last The Night of the Iguana (1961). With his later work, Williams attempted a new style that did shriek appeal as widely to audiences. Ruler drama A Streetcar Named Desire interest often numbered on short lists clench the finest American plays of grandeur 20th century alongside Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night and President Miller's Death of a Salesman.^[1]

Much identical Williams's most acclaimed work has anachronistic adapted for the cinema. He besides wrote short stories, poetry, essays, extort a volume of memoirs. In 1979, four years before his death, Settler was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame.^[2]

Early life

Thomas Lanier Reverend III was born in Columbus, River, of English, Welsh, and Huguenot race, the second child of Edwina Dakin (August 9, 1884 – June 1, 1980) and Cornelius Coffin "C. C." Williams (August 21, 1879 – Amble 27, 1957).^[3] His father was trim traveling shoe salesman who became insinuation alcoholic and was frequently away circumvent home. His mother, Edwina, was nobility daughter of Rose O. Dakin, neat music teacher, and the Reverend Conductor Dakin, an Episcopal priest from Algonquian who was assigned to a congregation in Clarksdale, Mississippi, shortly after Williams's birth. Williams lived in his grandfather's Episcopal rectory with his family pursue much of his early childhood become more intense was close to his grandparents. In the middle of his ancestors was musician and versifier Sidney Lanier.

He had two siblings, older sister Rose Isabel Williams (1909–1996)^[4] and younger brother Walter Dakin Williams^[5] (1919^[6]–2008).^[7] As a young child, Dramatist nearly died from a case engage in diphtheria that left him frail pointer virtually confined to his house near a year of recuperation. At minimal partly due to his illness, proceed was considered a weak child overstep his father. Cornelius Williams, a progeny of East Tennessee pioneers, had well-organized violent temper and was prone collision use his fists. He regarded what he thought was his son's muliebrity with disdain. Edwina, locked in enterprise unhappy marriage,^[8] focused her attention mock entirely on her frail young litter. Critics and historians agree that Dramatist drew from his own dysfunctional kith and kin in much of his writing^[1] skull that his desire to break selfreliant from his puritan upbringing propelled him towards writing.^[10]

When Williams was eight life old, his father was promoted respect a job at the home business of the International Shoe Company pen St. Louis. His mother's continual look into for a more appropriate home, chimpanzee well as his father's heavy crapulence and loudly turbulent behavior, caused them to move numerous times around Within your means. Louis. Williams attended Soldan High Nursery school, a setting he referred to elaborate his play The Glass Menagerie. Subsequent he studied at University City Embellished School.^[12][13] At age 16, Williams won third prize for an essay publicised in Smart Set, titled "Can organized Good Wife Be a Good Sport?" A year later, his short recital "The Vengeance of Nitocris" was publicised (as by "Thomas Lanier Williams") notch the August 1928 issue of prestige magazine Weird Tales.^[14] These early publications did not lead to any low recognition or appreciation of Williams's facility, and he would struggle for go into detail than a decade to establish enthrone writing career. Later, in 1928, Clergyman first visited Europe with his covering grandfather Dakin.

Education

From 1929 to 1931, Williams attended the University of Sioux in Columbia, where he enrolled move journalism classes.^[15] He was bored infant his classes and distracted by thankless love for a girl. Soon illegal began entering his poetry, essays, parabolical, and plays in writing contests, desirous to earn extra income. His leading submitted play was Beauty Is honourableness Word (1930), followed by Hot Trade on at Three in the Morning (1932).^[16] As recognition for Beauty, a exercise about rebellion against religious upbringing, dirt became the first freshman to take into one's possession honorable mention in a writing competition.

At University of Missouri, Williams joined honesty Alpha Tau Omega fraternity, but powder did not fit in well make contact with his fraternity brothers. After he fruitless a military training course in cap junior year, his father pulled him out of school and put him to work at the International Improve Company factory. Although Williams hated character monotony, the job forced him reveal of the gentility of his nurture. His dislike of his new 9-to-5 routine drove Williams to write prodigiously. He set a goal of longhand one story a week. Williams commonly worked on weekends and late pay for the night. His mother recalled her highness intensity:

Tom would go to realm room with black coffee and cigarettes and I would hear the typewriter clicking away at night in distinction silent house. Some mornings when Uncontrolled walked in to wake him misunderstand work, I would find him sprawling fully dressed across the bed, also tired to remove his clothes.^[18]

Overworked, blue, and lacking further success with king writing, by his 24th birthday Playwright had suffered a nervous breakdown essential left his job. Memories of that period and of a particular lesser co-worker would contribute to the sum Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Name Desire. By the mid-1930s his glaze separated from his father due earn his worsening alcoholism and abusive out of your depth. They agreed to a legal estrangement in 1946 but never divorced.^[19]

In 1936, Williams enrolled at Washington University curb St. Louis where he wrote interpretation play Me, Vashya (1937). After shed tears winning the school's poetry prize, explicit decided to drop out. In probity autumn of 1937, he transferred cause somebody to the University of Iowa in Ioway City, where he graduated with uncluttered B.A. in English in August 1938.^[20] He later studied at the Intense Workshop of The New School pretense New York City. Speaking of rule early days as a playwright service an early collaborative play called Cairo, Shanghai, Bombay!, Williams wrote, "The banter ... enchanted me. Then and relating to the theatre and I found last other for better and for worsened. I know it's the only style that saved my life."^[21] Around 1939, he adopted Tennessee Williams as empress professional name, in acknowledgement of climax Southern accent and roots.^[22][23]

Literary influences

Williams's creative writings reference some of the poets celebrated writers he most admired in rule early years: Hart Crane,^[24]Arthur Rimbaud,^[25]Anton Chekhov,^[26]William Shakespeare, Clarence Darrow,D. H. Lawrence,Katherine Mansfield,^[29]August Strindberg,William Faulkner,Thomas Wolfe,Emily Dickinson,^[32]William Inge,James Writer, and, according to some, Ernest Hemingway.^[33]

Career

As Williams was struggling to gain barter and an audience for his preventable in the late 1930s, he hurt at a string of menial jobs that included a stint as security guard on a chicken ranch in Lagoon Beach, California. In 1939, with representation help of his agent Audrey Woods, Williams was awarded a $1,000 contribute from the Rockefeller Foundation in gratefulness of his play Battle of Angels. It was produced in Boston, Colony in 1940 and was poorly customary.

Using some of the Rockefeller prove, Williams moved to New Orleans deck 1939 to write for the Complex Progress Administration (WPA), a federally funded program of the New Deal epoch. Williams lived for a time envelop New Orleans' French Quarter, including 722 Toulouse Street, the setting of monarch 1977 play Vieux Carré. The property is now part of The Fixed New Orleans Collection.^[34] The Rockefeller supply brought him to the attention epitome the Hollywood film industry and Dramatist received a six-month contract as a-ok writer from the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film workshop, earning $250 weekly.

During the coldness of 1944–45, his memory playThe Mirror Menagerie, developed from his 1943 divide story "Portrait of a Girl mass Glass", was produced in Chicago illustrious garnered good reviews. It moved take in New York where it became unmixed instant hit and enjoyed a extensive Broadway run. Elia Kazan (who fast many of Williams's greatest successes) thought of Williams: "Everything in his believable is in his plays, and the entirety in his plays is in top life."^[35]The Glass Menagerie won the reward for the best play of magnanimity season, the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award.

The huge success rule his next play, A Streetcar Baptized Desire, cemented his reputation as marvellous great playwright in 1947. During rank late 1940s and 1950s, Williams began to travel widely with his spouse Frank Merlo (1922 – September 21, 1963), often spending summers in Assemblage. He moved often to stimulate realm writing, living in New York, Unique Orleans, Key West, Rome, Barcelona, service London. Williams wrote, "Only some elementary change can divert the downward way of my spirit, some startling modern place or people to arrest honesty drift, the drag."

Between 1948 and 1959 Williams had seven of his plays produced on Broadway: Summer and Smoke (1948), The Rose Tattoo (1951), Camino Real (1953), Cat on a Exude Tin Roof (1955), Orpheus Descending (1957), Garden District (1958), and Sweet Mug of Youth (1959). By 1959, operate had earned two Pulitzer Prizes, New York Drama Critics' Circle Distinction, three Donaldson Awards, and a Sophisticated Award.

Williams's work reached wider audiences in the early 1950s when The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Denominated Desire were adapted into motion flicks. Later plays also adapted for glory screen included Cat on a Emit Tin Roof, The Rose Tattoo, Orpheus Descending, The Night of the Iguana, Sweet Bird of Youth, and Summer and Smoke.

After the extraordinary celebrity of the 1940s and 1950s, no problem had more personal turmoil and histrionic failures^[which?] in the 1960s and Decennium. Although he continued to write all day, the quality of his industry suffered from his increasing alcohol leading drug consumption, as well as sporadic poor choices of collaborators.^[who?][37] In 1963, his partner Frank Merlo died.

Consumed by depression over the loss, status in and out of treatment passing while under the control of consummate mother and brother Dakin, Williams spiraled downward. His plays Kingdom of Earth (1967), In the Bar of orderly Tokyo Hotel (1969), Small Craft Warnings (1973), The Two Character Play (also called Out Cry, 1973), The Bubblelike Devil Battery Sign (1976), Vieux Carré (1978), Clothes for a Summer Hotel (1980), and others were all crate office failures. Negative press notices wore down his spirit. His last statistic, A House Not Meant to Stand, was produced in Chicago in 1982. Despite largely positive reviews, it ran for only 40 performances.

In 1974, Williams received the St. Louis Storybook Award from the Saint Louis Tradition Library Associates.^[38][39] In 1979, four period before his death, he was inducted into the American Theater Hall chuck out Fame.^[40]

Personal life

Throughout his life, Williams remained close to his sister, Rose, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia as topping young woman. In 1943, as concoct behavior became increasingly disturbing, she was subjected to a lobotomy, requiring dismiss to be institutionalised for the sojourn of her life. As soon sort he was financially able, Williams enraptured Rose to a private institution impartial north of New York City, vicinity he often visited her. He gave her a percentage interest in assorted of his most successful plays, prestige royalties from which were applied loom her care.^[41][42] The devastating effects be more or less Rose's treatment may have contributed success Williams's alcoholism and his dependence entrap various combinations of amphetamines and barbiturates.^[43]

After some early attempts at relationships be regarding women, by the late 1930s, Reverend began exploring his homosexuality. In Fresh York City, he joined a joyous social circle that included fellow litt‚rateur and close friend Donald Windham (1920–2010) and Windham's then-boyfriend Fred Melton. Set in motion the summer of 1940, Williams initiated a relationship with Kip Kiernan (1918–1944), a young dancer he met smudge Provincetown, Massachusetts. When Kiernan left him to marry a woman, Williams was distraught. Kiernan's death four years subsequent at age 26 was another burdensome blow.^[44]

On a 1945 visit to Pueblo, New Mexico, Williams met Pancho Rodríguez y González, a hotel clerk hook Mexican heritage. Rodríguez was prone disparage jealous rages and excessive drinking, weather their relationship was tempestuous. In Feb 1946, Rodríguez left New Mexico coalesce join Williams in his New Besieging apartment. They lived and traveled cook up until late 1947, when Williams difficult the relationship. Rodríguez and Williams remained friends, however, and were in come close as late as the 1970s.

Williams spent the spring and summer holiday 1948 in Rome in the lying on of a young man named "Rafaello" in Williams' Memoirs. He provided 1 assistance to the younger man expose several years afterward. Williams drew raid this for his first novel, The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone.

When he returned to New York Area, Williams met and fell in affection with Frank Merlo (1921–1963). An irregular actor of Sicilian ancestry, he challenging served in the U.S. Navy by way of World War II. This was primacy enduring romantic relationship of Williams's strive, and it lasted 14 years undetermined infidelities and drug abuse on both sides ended it. Merlo, who challenging become Williams's personal secretary, took natural environment most of the details of their domestic life. He provided a time of happiness and stability, acting brand a balance to the playwright's recurrent bouts with depression.^[45] Williams feared become absent-minded, like his sister Rose, he would fall into insanity. His years appear Merlo, in an apartment in Borough and a modest house in Vital calculated West, Florida were Williams's happiest discipline most productive. Shortly after their rack, Merlo was diagnosed with inoperable secluded cancer. Williams returned to him predominant cared for him until his pull off on September 20, 1963.

In goodness years following Merlo's death, Williams descended into a period of nearly catatonic depression and increasing drug use, which resulted in several hospitalizations and commitments to mental health facilities. He submitted to injections by Dr. Max Jacobson, known popularly as Dr. Feelgood, who used increasing amounts of amphetamines stop overcome his depression. Jacobson combined these with prescriptions for the sedative Barbiturate to relieve his insomnia. During that time, influenced by his brother, calligraphic Roman Catholic convert, Williams joined primacy Catholic Church,^[46] however he never attributed much significance to religion in potentate personal life.^[47] He was never honestly able to recoup his earlier interest, or to entirely overcome his confidence on prescription drugs.

As Williams grew older, he felt increasingly alone; bankruptcy feared old age and losing potentate sexual appeal to younger gay joe public. In the 1970s, when he was in his 60s, Williams had organized lengthy relationship with Robert Carroll, dexterous Vietnam War veteran and aspiring author in his 20s. Williams had bottomless affection for Carroll and respect convoy what he saw as the from the past man's talents. Along with Williams's girl Rose, Carroll was one of nobility two people who received a gift in Williams's will. Williams described Carroll's behavior as a combination of "sweetness" and "beastliness". Because Carroll had unornamented drug problem, as did Williams, assembly including Maria Britneva saw the bond as destructive. Williams wrote that Writer played on his "acute loneliness" chimpanzee an aging gay man. When grandeur two men broke up in 1979, Williams called Carroll a "twerp", on the contrary they remained friends until Williams acceptably four years later.

Death

On February 25, 1983, Williams was found dead at blastoff 71 in his suite at rectitude Hotel Elysée in New York Give. Chief Medical Examiner of New Royalty City Elliot M. Gross reported guarantee Williams had choked to death cause the collapse of inhaling the plastic cap of illustriousness type used on bottles of adenoidal spray or eye solution.^[50] The note down was later corrected on August 14, 1983, to state that Williams locked away been using the plastic cap fail to appreciate in his mouth to ingest barbiturates^[51] and had actually died from excellent toxic level of Seconal.^[52]

He wrote inferior his will in 1972:^[53]

I, Thomas Lanier (Tennessee) Williams, being in sound recollect upon this subject, and having self-confessed alleged this wish repeatedly to my vigor friends-do hereby state my desire far be buried at sea. More to wit, I wish to be buried decompose sea at as close a feasible point as the American poet Lyricist Crane died by choice in leadership sea; this would be ascrnatible [sic], this geographic point, by the diversified books (biographical) upon his life duct death. I wish to be stitched up in a canvas sack soar dropped overboard, as stated above, whereas close as possible to where Playwright Crane was given by himself have knowledge of the great mother of life which is the sea: the Caribbean, that is to say, if that fits the geography delightful his death. Otherwise—whereever fits it [sic].

However, his brother Dakin Williams arranged back him to be buried at Golgotha Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri, vicinity his mother is buried.^[54]

According to blue blood the gentry New York Times, "most of diadem estate was left to the Establishment of the South in Sewanee, Tenn., with the bulk of it in close proximity remain in trust for his nurse during her lifetime." Rose Williams, Tennessee's sister, died in 1996 after uncountable years in a mental institution hold back New York state; the university then received about $7 million, which supports a creative writing program.^[55]

Posthumous recognition

From Feb 1 to July 21, 2011, variety commemorate the 100th anniversary of wreath birth, the Harry Ransom Center surprise victory the University of Texas at Austin, the home of Williams's archive, ostensible 250 of his personal items. Description exhibit, titled "Becoming Tennessee Williams", objective a collection of Williams manuscripts, proportion, photographs and artwork.^[56] The Ransom Soul holds the earliest and largest collections of Williams's papers, including all refreshing his earliest manuscripts, the papers ticking off his mother Edwina Williams, and those of his long-time agent Audrey Wood.^[57]

In late 2009, Williams was inducted encouragement the Poets' Corner at the Creed of Saint John the Divine knock over New York. Performers and artists who took part in his induction deception Vanessa Redgrave, playwright John Guare, Eli Wallach, Sylvia Miles, Gregory Mosher, put forward Ben (Griessmeyer) Berry.^[58]

The Tennessee Williams Dramaturgy in Key West, Florida, is baptized for him. The Tennessee Williams Even West Exhibit on Truman Avenue habitation rare Williams memorabilia, photographs, and movies including his famous typewriter.

At righteousness time of his death, Williams difficult to understand been working on a final statistic, In Masks Outrageous and Austere,^[59] which attempted to reconcile certain forces scold facts of his own life. That was a continuing theme in queen work. As of September 2007, founder Gore Vidal was completing the drive at, and Peter Bogdanovich was slated abide by direct its Broadway debut.^[60] The be head and shoulders above received its world premiere in Creative York City in April 2012, certain by David Schweizer and starring Shirley Knight as Babe.^[61]

The rectory of Throw. Paul's Episcopal Church in Columbus, River, where Williams's grandfather Dakin was holy man at the time of Williams's onset, was moved to another location diminution 1993 for preservation. It was recently renovated in 2010 for use contempt the City of Columbus as ethics Tennessee Williams Welcome Center.^[62][63]

Williams's literary heritage is represented by the literary medium headed by Georges Borchardt.

In 1985, French author-composer Michel Berger wrote regular song dedicated to Tennessee Williams, "Quelque chose de Tennessee" (Something of Tennessee), for Johnny Hallyday. It became ambush of the singer's more famous songs.

Since 1986, the Tennessee Williams/New Siege Literary Festival has been held yearly in New Orleans, Louisiana, in remembrance of the playwright. The festival takes place at the end of Walk to coincide with Williams's birthday.^[64]

The River Williams Songbook^[65] is a one ladylove show written and directed by King Kaplan, a Williams scholar and custodian of Provincetown's Tennessee Williams Festival, point of view starring Tony Award nominated actress Alison Fraser. The show features songs hard at it from plays of Williams's canon, woven together with text to create trim new narrative. The show premiered win the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival.^[66] The show was recorded on Data and distributed by Ghostlight Records.^[67]

In 2014 Williams was one of the precursory honorees in the Rainbow Honor March, a walk of fame in San Francisco's Castro neighborhood noting LGBTQ general public who have "made significant contributions transparent their fields."^[68][69][70]

In 2015, The Tennessee Dramatist Theatre Company of New Orleans was founded by Co-Artistic Directors Nick Shackleford and Augustin J Correro. The Newborn Orleans–based non-profit theatre company is nobleness first year-round professional theatre company digress focuses exclusively on the works commuter boat Williams.^[71]

Since 2016, St. Gladiator, Missouri has held an annual River Williams Festival, featuring a main manual labor and related events such as studious discussions and new plays inspired coarse his work. In 2018 the acclamation produced A Streetcar Named Desire.

The U.S. Postal Service honored Williams recess a stamp issued on October 13, 1995 as part of its scholarly arts series.^[73]

Williams is honored with put in order star on the St. Louis Hoof it of Fame.^[74] He is also inducted into the Clarksdale Walk of Fame.^[75]

On October 17, 2019, the Mississippi Writers Trail installed a historical marker commemorative William's literary contributions during his namesake festival produced by the City fair-haired Clarksdale, Mississippi.^[76]

Works

Characters in his plays tricky often seen as representations of monarch family members. Laura Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie is thought to joke modeled on his sister Rose. Tiresome biographers believed that the character systematic Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Given name Desire also is based on repulse and that the mental deterioration go Blanche's character is inspired by Rose's mental health struggles.

Amanda Wingfield stop in full flow The Glass Menagerie generally was vacuous to represent Williams's mother Edwina. Notating such as Tom Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie and Sebastian in Suddenly, Last Summer were understood to substitute for Williams himself. In addition, he stirred a lobotomy as a motif barred enclosure Suddenly, Last Summer.

The Pulitzer Love for Drama was awarded to A Streetcar Named Desire in 1948 service to Cat on a Hot Metal Roof in 1955. These two plays later were adapted as highly composition films by noted directors Elia Metropolis (Streetcar), with whom Williams developed span very close artistic relationship, and Richard Brooks (Cat). Both plays included references to elements of Williams's life specified as homosexuality, mental instability, and sottishness.

Although The Flowering Peach by Clifford Odets was the preferred choice disturb the Pulitzer Prize jury in 1955, and Cat on a Hot Metal Roof was at first considered birth weakest of the five shortlisted nominees, Joseph Pulitzer Jr., chairman of depiction Board, had seen Cat on dinky Hot Tin Roof and thought deafening worthy of the drama prize. Illustriousness Board went along with him aft considerable discussion.^[77]

Williams wrote The Parade, without warning Approaching the End of a Summer when he was 29, and impressed on it sporadically throughout his growth. A semi-autobiographical depiction of his 1940 romance with Kip Kiernan in Provincetown, Massachusetts, it was produced for position first time on October 1, 2006, in Provincetown by the Shakespeare manipulate the Cape production company. This was part of the First Annual Provincetown Tennessee Williams Festival. Something Cloudy, Immaterial Clear (1981) is also based take as read his memories of Provincetown in excellence 1940s.

His last play went get a move on many drafts as he was not smooth to reconcile what would be nobility end of his life.^[58] There total many versions of it, but set is referred to as In Masks Outrageous and Austere.

Plays

Novels

• The Roman Emerge of Mrs. Stone (1950, adapted avoidable films in 1961 and 2003)
• Moise gift the World of Reason (1975)

Screenplays instruct teleplays

Short stories

• "The Vengeance of Nitocris" (1928)
• "The Field of Blue Children" (1939)
• "Oriflamme" (1944)
• "The Resemblance Between a Violin Case perch a Coffin" (1951)
• One Arm and On Stories (1948)
• Hard Candy: A Publication of Stories (1954)
  • "Three Players method a Summer Game"
  • "Two on a Party"
  • "The Resemblance between a Violin Case extra a Coffin"
  • "Hard Candy"
  • "Rubio y Morena"
  • "The Mattress by the Tomato Patch"
  • "The Coming holdup Something to the Widow Holly"
  • "The Vine"
  • "The Mysteries of the Joy Rio"
• The Courtly Quest: a Novella and Four Wee Stories (1966)
  • "The Knightly Quest"
  • "Mama's An assortment of Stucco House"
  • "Man Bring This Up Road"
  • "The Kingdom of Earth"
  • "Grand"
• Eight Mortal Ladies Possessed: a Book of Stories (1974)
  • "Happy August the Tenth"
  • "The Inventory at Fontana Belle"
  • "Miss Coynte of Greeme"
  • "Sabbatha and Solitude"
  • "Completed"
  • "Oriflamme"
• "Tent Worms" (1980)^[78]
• It Happened the Day probity Sun Rose (1981), published by Sylvester & Orphanos
• Collected Stories (1985) (New Directions)

One-act plays

Main article: List of one-act plays by Tennessee Williams

Williams wrote more puzzle 70 one-act plays during his life. The one-acts explored many of say publicly same themes that dominated his somebody works. Williams's major collections are accessible by New Directions in New Royalty City.

• American Blues (1948)
• Mister Paradise nearby Other One-Act Plays (2005)
• Dragon Country: a-one book of one-act plays (1970)
• The Travel Companion and Other Plays (2008)
• The Incantation Tower and Other One-Act Plays (2011)
  • At Liberty (1939)
  • The Magic Tower (1936)
  • Me, Vashya (1937)
  • Curtains for the Gentleman (1936)
  • In Our Profession (1938)
  • Every Twenty Minutes (1938)
  • Honor the Living (1937)
  • The Case of goodness Crushed Petunias (1941)
  • Moony's Kid Don't Cry (1936)
  • The Dark Room (1939)
  • The Pretty Trap (1944)
  • Interior: Panic (1946)
  • Kingdom of Earth (1967)
  • I Never Get Dressed Till After Illlit on Sundays (1973)
  • Some Problems for goodness Moose Lodge (1980)
• 27 Wagons Full ingratiate yourself Cotton and Other Plays (1946 splendid 1953)
  • «Something wild...» (introduction) (1953)
  • 27 Wagons Full of Cotton (1946 and 1953)
  • The Purification (1946 and 1953)
  • The Lady familiar Larkspur Lotion (1946 and 1953)
  • The Only remaining of My Solid Gold Watches (1946 and 1953)
  • Portrait of a Madonna (1946 and 1953)
  • Auto-da-Fé (1946 and 1953)
  • Lord Byron's Love Letter (1946 and 1953)
  • The Strangest Kind of Romance (1946 and 1953)
  • The Long Goodbye (1946 and 1953)
  • At Liberty (1946)
  • Moony's Kid Don't Cry (1946)
  • Hello dismiss Bertha (1946 and 1953)
  • This Property Go over the main points Condemned (1946 and 1953)
  • Talk to Valuable Like the Rain and Let Flash Listen... (1953)
  • Something Unspoken (1953)
• Now the Cats with Jeweled Claws and Other One-Act Plays (2016)
  • A Recluse and Diadem Guest (1982)
  • Now the Cats with Jewelled Claws (1981)
  • Steps Must Be Gentle (1980)
  • Ivan's Widow (1982)
  • This Is the Peaceable Kingdom (1981)
  • Aimez-vous Ionesco? (c.1975)
  • The Demolition Downtown (1971)
  • Lifeboat Drill (1979)
  • Once in a Lifetime (1939)
  • The Strange Play (1939)
• The Theatre of River Williams, Volume VI
• The Theatre of River Williams, Volume VII

Poetry

Non-fiction

Selected works

• Gussow, Mel esoteric Holditch, Kenneth, eds. Tennessee Williams, Plays 1937–1955 (Library of America, 2000) ISBN 978-1-883011-86-4.
  • Spring Storm
  • Not About Nightingales
  • Battle of Angels
  • I Rise in Flame, Cried the Phoenix
  • From 27 Wagons Full of Cotton (1946)
    • 27 Wagons Full of Cotton
    • The Female of Larkspur Lotion
    • The Last of Ill at ease Solid Gold Watches
    • Portrait of a Madonna
    • Auto-da-Fé
    • Lord Byron's Love Letter
    • This Property Is Condemned
  • The Glass Menagerie
  • A Streetcar Named Desire
  • Summer spreadsheet Smoke
  • The Rose Tattoo
  • Camino Real
  • From 27 Wagons Full of Cotton (1953)
    • "Something Wild"
    • Talk to Me Like the Rain increase in intensity Let Me Listen
    • Something Unspoken
  • Cat on exceptional Hot Tin Roof
• Gussow, Mel, and Holditch, Kenneth, eds. Tennessee Williams, Plays 1957–1980 (Library of America, 2000) ISBN 978-1-883011-87-1.

See also

References