Our Town and the Cosmic One-Acts - Harper Perennial Deluxe Editions by Thornton Wilder Paperback

Book Synopsis

"Thornton Wilder will survive. . . as long as there are people around who are willing to sit in something called a theater and be reminded of their common humanity." --New York Times

A beautifully designed special edition of Thornton Wilder's beloved masterpiece Our Town, together with three astonishing one-act plays that reach across space and time, redefining what theater can be.

An American classic for nearly a century, Our Town, set in the mythical village of Grover's Corners, is the story of a love affair that asks timeless questions about love, life, and death. It explores the relationship between young neighbors George Gibbs and Emily Webb, whose childhood friendship blossoms into romance, then marriage. With poignancy and loving irony, this landmark of world drama, hailed by everyone from Edward Albee to Albert Einstein, shows what it means to appreciate life while we're living it, and considers what awaits us after that.

This exclusive edition also includes three of Wilder's acclaimed one-act plays, which he called "cosmic" The Long Christmas Dinner, The Happy Journey to Trenton and Camden, and Pullman Car Hiawatha. Like Our Town, these breathtakingly original works are stripped to their essence, revealing vital truths about life and humanity. As Jeremy McCarter, literary executor of the Wilder Estate, writes in his foreword, "no American dramatist has done a more compact job of placing the minutiae of our daily routines alongside the vast mysteries of existence, and asking us to consider the relationship between them."

The Long Christmas Dinner traces ninety years in the life of the Bayard family over the course of a single holiday meal. As generations appear, have children, grow old, and depart, only the audience appreciates what changes and what endures.

The Happy Journey to Trenton and Camden dramatizes a family's drive across New Jersey to visit their daughter--a simple trip with a devastating twist. Their journey is punctuated by laughter, memories, and little glimpses of everyday life--the fragile joys of being alive.

Pullman Car Hiawatha is set aboard a train traveling from New York to Chicago in December 1930. As the diverse band of passengers races across America at night, Wilder takes the audience on a metaphorical journey through time, space, life, and death.

These groundbreaking one-act plays were originally published in 1931 and blazed the trail for Our Town seven years later. Published together in this volume, the four masterpieces offer a fresh way to enjoy the singular genius and cosmic imagination of Thornton Wilder.

Review Quotes

"Taking as his material three periods in the history of a placid New Hampshire town, Mr. Wilder has transmuted the simple events of human life into universal reverie. He has given familiar facts a deeply moving, philosophical perspective. . . . Our Town is one of the finest achievements of the current stage." - Brooks Atkinson, American theater critic
"Its astringent distillation of life and death in the fictional early-20th-century town of Grover's Corners, N.H., is desperately needed. . . so Americans can remember who we are. . . . The true American faith endures in 'Our Town'." - Frank Rich, New York Times
"Wilder's unfashionable insistence on embracing wonders as well as woe is both gallant and exhilarating. . . . Our Town leaves us with a sense of blessing, and the unspoken but palpable command to achieve gratitude in what remains of our days on earth" - The New Yorker
"Our Town demonstrates in the most gentle way, the most celebrational way, how difficult it is to be a human being." - Will Eno, American playwright
"Our Town is probably the finest play ever written by an American." - Edward Albee
"In Our Town, Wilder cautions us to recognize that life is both precious and ordinary, and that these two fundamental truths are intimately connected." - New York Times