Our Town [American Classics Edition]

“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

“On a deeper level Wilder’s play, with its tragic undercurrents, speaks to another fundamental virtue enshrined as an American ideal: the importance of honesty. Every kid learns the apocryphal story of George Washington chopping down a cherry tree and confessing: ‘I cannot tell a lie.’ Nor could Wilder in his greatest play: Life, he reminds us, is precious but evanescent, and all too often we move through it without grasping its value and its beauty. Wilder’s drama, in its bracing clarity, exemplifies the role of the artist as truth-teller.” - Charles Isherwood, WALL STREET JOURNAL

Thornton Wilder (1897-1975) was an accomplished novelist and playwright whose works, exploring the connection between the commonplace and cosmic dimensions of human experience, continue to be read and produced around the world.

His novel, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1928. Two of his four full-length dramas also received the Pulitzer Prize: Our Town (1938) and The Skin of Our Teeth (1943).

Wilder’s play, The Matchmaker, was adapted as the musical Hello, Dolly!. He also achieved success in many other forms of written and spoken word, including teaching, acting, opera, and film. His screenplay for Hitchcock’s Shadow of Doubt (1943) remains a classic psycho-thriller.

Wilder’s many honors include the Gold Medal for Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the National Book Committee’s Medal for Literature.

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