Nine Volumes in Nine Months

2003 is a grand year for Wilder. HarperCollins, in a major publishing venture, is reissuing Wilder’s novels and plays in nine volumes, all with introductions by noted writers and playwrights. The volumes will be issued in three series of three.

Spring 2003:

  • Theophilus North, with a foreword by Christopher Buckley
  • The Bridge of San Luis Rey, with a foreword by Russell Banks
  • The Skin of Our Teeth, with a foreword by Pulitzer Prize-winning dramatist Paula Vogel.

Summer 2003:

  • Heaven’s My Destination, with a foreword by J.D. McClatchy
  • The Ides of March, with a foreword by Kurt Vonnegut
  • Three Plays: Our Town, The Skin of Our Teeth, and The Matchmaker, with a foreword by John Guare

Fall 2003:

  • The Eighth Day, with a foreword by John Updike
  • Our Town, with a foreword by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Donald Margulies
  • The Woman of Andros and The Cabala, issued in one volume with an introduction by Wilder biographer Penelope Niven.

The project brings together some of America’s best living writers in celebration of Thornton Wilder and his works. This group, whose works have earned an impressive number of awards and prizes, examines Wilder’s important influence on 20th-century literature. It is quite a milestone to have these seven novels and three plays all in print at the same time.