The back matter of this volume is constructed in large part from Thornton Wilder’s words in unpublished letters, manuscripts, and journals, and publications not easy to come by, among them the undergraduate and alumni records of the Yale College Classes of 1919–1921, and issues of the Yale Alumni Weekly from 1920–1931. I hope readers will find that this approach brings these two novels, and the artist who wrote them, into view in a personal way. Those interested in further information about Thornton Wilder are referred to standard sources and to the bibliography available at www.thorntonwildersociety.org. Widely available sources on certain topics addressed in this volume deserve special mention. The collection of Wilder’s playlets, The Angel That Troubled the Waters, first published in 1928, is found in The Collected Short Plays of Thornton Wilder, Volume II (1998), a volume also graced by a deeply informed introduction by the playwright A. R. Gurney. The afterword to Wilder’s fourth novel, Heaven’s My Destination (1935), contains in this HarperCollins series additional information about the Michael Gold attack and Wilder’s response to it. My definition of a short novel as falling between 60,000 and 20,000 words is adopted from the schema Edward Weeks set forth in his selection of Great Short Novels, published in 1941 by The Literary Guild of America. I have cited information found in O. H. Cheney’s classic study of book publishing, Economic Survey of the Book Industry, published originally in 1931 by R. R. Bowker Company, as reprinted in 1960.
J. D. McClatchy, Robin Wilder, Jackson Bryer, and the staff of Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library have provided unwavering support for this book and the project it is part of. Noa Wheeler and Ellen Wilhite helped with many a practical task. Two individuals deserve a special salute: Hugh Van Dusen for his faith in these novels and the larger project of which they are a piece, and Penelope Niven, the Thornton Wilder biographer, for her wisdom and encouragement from beginning to end and for providing a Foreword that is a model of the art. Any errors in the Afterword are my responsibility, and I welcome corrections.
With the exception of sources noted below, all excerpts quoted from unpublished sources are from Thornton Wilder’s correspondence, manuscripts, and related records in the Thornton Wilder Collection in the Yale Collection of American Literature (YCAL) in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, or from the Wilder family’s own holdings, including many of Thornton Wilder’s legal and agency papers. Silent corrections in spelling and punctuation have been made when deemed appropriate. The Sibyl Colfax letters are held in the Thornton Wilder Collection, Fales Manuscripts, Fales Library, New York University, and Marvin J. Taylor’s assistance is gratefully acknowledged. Dr. Eve Katz provided the English translation of Ernst Renan’s words.
Wilder’s Foreword to The Angel That Troubled the Waters is reprinted in American Characteristics & Other Essays (New York: Harper & Row, 1979; Authors Guild Backinprint edition, 2000), 95–99. Unless otherwise noted, all rights for all published and unpublished work by Thornton Wilder are reserved by the Wilder Family LLC. Thornton Niven Wilder: The Memorial Service was privately printed in 1976 by Yale University. Passages from his works read at this service appear on pages 14–19.
Unless otherwise credited herein, the images in this volume are taken from material in the Wilder Archives at Yale or are held by the Wilder family. The Eva Hermann caricature appears with the permission of the Artists Rights Society. The three indicated photographs, including the author picture probably dating from 1924, appear with the permission of the Lawrenceville School and were provided by the helpful Jacqueline Haun, Archivist of that institution.