Tennessee Williams: Plays 1957-1980 (Library of America) (Hardcover)

~ Tennessee Williams (Author), Mel Gussow (Editor), Kenneth Holditch (Editor) "ONE icy bright winter morning in the last week of 1940, my brave representative, Audrey Wood, and I were crossing the Common in Boston, from..." (more)
Key Phrases: poppyseed tea, liquor cart, bus key, Miss Gluck, Miss Alma, Chance Wayne (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This set collects all of Williams's plays, including the recently rediscovered early efforts Spring Storm and Not About Nightingales up through his most famous works and later lesser-known dramas. These magnificent titles are essential for all academic and public libraries.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 975 pages
• Publisher: Library of America; First Printing edition (October 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1883011876
• ISBN-13: 978-1883011871
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #75,393 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Overloaded, January 12, 2008

By	H. Schneider "Hermit" (window seat) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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My review refers to the two Ten Williams volumes of the LoA.
I love the LoA. The books give me the supreme pleasure in reading. They are so beautifully printed on optimal paper in an optimal size, that I sometimes read stuff that is not worth reading.
I have read '10' for two reasons: 1. because I had bought the LoA, and 2. because I had read a lot about the 'glorious bird' in Gore Vidal's 2 volume memoirs. And then, of course, I had seen the Glass Menagerie on Stage and the Cat on the Hot Tin Roof in the movies. Can't remember what else I might have seen before I read this. I saw Suddenly Last Summer only after I read it. I never saw A Streetcar or the Iguana. Pity.
Let me say straightforward, that I love half a dozen to maximum 10 of TW's plays. They are pulp material, they are trash, they are melodrama, and they are true, and gripping, and honest, and vulgar...
And they are great.
But the early plays are plain nothing, while the last few ones are abominable.
It is impossible to draw a strict line when he started to write readable stuff and when he declined so badly that he stopped doing that. But for me it is clear: his early attempts are trash, and so are his last.
My conclusion: the LoA would have done better to restrict themselves to one volume and then focus on the main phase.
If they want to re-issue, I can offer advice as to which plays to include and which ones not.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Lyrical Voice of Tennessee Williams, May 2, 2007

By	Brian C. Dauth (Brooklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Tennessee Williams represented a major advance in American drama as he introduced a lyricism that had previously been missing. Eugene O'Neill helped the American theatre grow up, but Williams was the one who made it sing.

Williams was able to create complex, vibrant plays which gave intense life to all of the contradictions, nastiness, dysfunction and beauty of American life and families. America has never produced a more honest or sincere playwright. His characters are always searching for ways to hang on to their humanity as the forces of repression and authoritarianism threaten to swallow them up or destroy them.

But above all else, Williams' dialogue is superbly, sublimely poetic. For Williams, the drama is in language itself, and no one has ever used words to greater effect than Tennessee Williams. Both Library of America volumes of Williams' plays are essential reading for people interested in theatre, America, and/or the possibilities of hope and grace in turbulent times.

5 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Am I allowed to review a review?, January 30, 2007

By	C. Green "ctg209" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I, for one, worship the pulp Tennesse Williams typed upon, but I think Mark E. Baxter's review below might just give Tenn himself a run for his money when it comes to audaciously witty, ironic, shocking, and ultimately moving writing. At the very least, Williams (a man who was once seen at a production of "A Streetcar Named Desire" cackling "Haha, she's off to the nuthouse now!" as the curtain fell) would have enjoyed this hilariously, astonishingly off-kilter review. Brava, Mark E. Baxter! Well done!