The plays contained in this volume are wonderful and interesting (especially in terms of his development) to any fan of Tennessee Williams... but I purchased the book believing it was the COMPLETE collected plays 1937-1955, which it is not. It is a group of "selected" plays. I bought it hoping to get more of the one-acts and historical oddities. It contains some of these, but mostly consists of his the more well-known plays, which anyone who would buy this book likely already has (e.g. Cat. Streetcar, Menagerie). Perhaps Amazon.com might want to place a line of explanatory commentary to that effect on the product description.

The new Library of America volume "Tennessee Williams: Plays, 1937-1955" is the first of two volumes. (The second volume covers the plays from 1957 to 1980.) This is a magnificent book, beautifully printed and bound. It is comprehensive (over 1000 pages) and has extensive notes and a complete chronology of Williams's life. Several of the plays are printed with commentaries by Tennessee Williams himself, essays that are very informative. This book belongs in the library of any fan of American theater.

If you have only seen the several movies made in the 1950's from his plays, reading these will prove a revelation for you. Because of the restrictions put on movies in the 50's, most of his works were deeply expurgated, especially any overt references to homosexuality. So reading the original plays here often reveals underlying previously obscure motivations/conflicts of some of the characters: why, for example, Blanche DuBois had fallen from being a privileged Southern Belle to the pathetic wretch who appeared on Stanley and Stella's doorstep.

Unlike many playwrights, Tennessee Williams tended to give long, detailed stage directions. This gives the reader of the plays a novel-like narrative, making them wonderful experiences for readers who do not ordinarily enjoy reading plays. The sensuous atmosphere, the classical -- almost Greek sense of tragedy that looms in almost all of these plays, and the exquisite use of language make this a unique reading experience. The writers who had influence over Williams's style are never named but seem apparent, at least to this reader. For example, when reading "The Rose Tattoo" I was reminded of the great Spanish poet/playwright Garcia Lorca's "House of Bernarda Alba." The cackling, vicious, vindictive neighbors, like some Greek Chorus, echoed many of the women in Lorca's work.

This volume even includes the play "Not About Nightingales", a play never performed in Williams's lifetime, but which was recently brought to Broadway in a Tony-winning run. "Not About Nightingales" is a stark prison drama that is quite different from the style he eventually developed. Among the "great" plays included here are "The Glass Menagerie", "A Streetcar Named Desire", "Summer and Smoke", and "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." Like all volumes in the Library of America series, this book has been given first-class treatment. Beautiful bindings, ribboned marker, and fine acid-free paper for permanence. It is meant to be owned and treasured forever. You will love this book....

Tennessee Williams wrote plays exploring human passion with an unflinching and iconoclastic candor, shattering conventional proprieties and transforming the American stage of his day. This outstanding, two-volume series from The Library Of America showcases Williams' extraordinary range and achievement as a playwright with 32 of his works, including recently rediscovered plays of his early career (Spring Storm; Not About Nightingales). All of his works from the years 1937 through 1980 are here, including his world renowned plays The Glass Menagerie; A Streetcar Named Desire; Orpheus Descending; Suddenly Last Summer; Sweet Bird Of Youth; The Night Of The Iguana; and his Pulitzer- Prizing winning Cat On A Hot Tin Roof. This two volume collection is further enhanced with a chronology of Williams' life, explanatory notes, an essay on the tests of the plays, and cast lists of many of the original productions. Tennesse Williams: Plays, Volumes 1 & 2 is an essential addition to personal, scholarly, and theatrical history collections.

Tennessee Williams is one of my favorite playwrights because he was not afraid to define the stage and setting as much as the story and characters. Not About Nightingales is a great example of this. I performed in my high school's production of this play (we cut the gay character, welcome to surburbia...) although in a minor role, Shapiro. I think the staging guidance that Williams provides is great, and the core story is also very effective at illustrating the terrible conditions in prisons at the time the book was written.

However, there are lines that make me wince. Eva, the only female with any development, is stereotypical and has some horrendous lines here and there. "Explosions are such a...waste...of energy." It reads badly, and sounds worse on stage. There are others, with most of the major characters. These grate on the nerves when you're trying to believe in the intense drama that otherwise pervades the work.

Also, it's possible to see that Williams was indeed a younger writer when he wrote this than other works like The Glass Menagerie. His minor characters have no development whatsoever, and exist simply to portary the variety of races and ethnicities effected by poor prison conditions. Shapiro, for instance, is Jewish. At one point, dying, he says, "My people are used to suffering." Perhaps, but this sounds more like a Rabbi than a prisoner. The spanish prisoner, Mex, is essentially the same. Queenie, the gay character, is just...well...outrageously effeminate. It's hard to believe he survived his first few weeks in prison. I'd rather see more development of Butch/Jim and Jim/Eva. The lead roles in this play are great parts. Conflict is real and omnipresent for them. Jim and Butch are characters I'll remember forever. The Warden, too, is a great sadistic villian.

You have to make a leap of faith with this book, but it's worth the effort. If you can see the play professionally, do it.

Torn among O'Neill's rarely seen "The Iceman Cometh" and Miller's haunting "Death of a Salesman", I chose "Not About Nightingales" as the outstanding production on a recent trip to NYC. I was fortunate and honored to have seen this work with Corin Redgrave playing one of the major roles. This is, without a doubt, the best play of the 1998-1999 season on Broadway. It is a wonderful blend of William's poetry and some of the harshest, physical action I have seen on a stage. The entire cast was a joy to watch! Since theater is also literature, I'm positive you will enjoy reading this beautifully rough work by one of America's finest playwrights.

I love this play. I was fortunate enough to get to see it in New York with the entire original cast. The writting is beautiful. The play is so masterfully written that you won't want it to end. It's complete with the perfect ending, the perfect opening, the right amount of comedy and tragedy, and spectacular dialogue. The play is wonderfully engaging, and I would love to see it again. The characters are so clearly written and each have a life of their own. Get the play -- it's a masterpiece.

One of Mr. Williams best pieces. In Battle of Angels, Mr. Williams shows revenge and obsession absorbed in each other to a distructive end. This belongs in any collection of great literature.

The best! Obsession is the main ingredent in this thrilling play. You will never be bored. A real page turner!

Having discovered William Gay's "The Long Home," and read his short stories, I enjoyed "The Provinces of Night" for its vivid portraiture of blood ties of real earthy people of a Tennessee backcountry trapped in a time and a place in the 1950s. Gay is a great scene-setter, threading his story with honest dialogue and episodes that move the story of crumbling loyalties and the age-old strife of the South to conclusion. His weaving of dialogue into the text without quotation marks is slightly burdensome but it worked for Charles Frazier in "Cold Mountain" and for Gay's obvious literary idol, Cormac McCarthy. Quite obviously Gay is a student of Faulkner and McCarthy and is not afraid of literary devices and metaphors too much missing in today's action-sped novels. He is truly a Southern storyteller with the ability to evoke the real world of Tennesseans by blending the past with the present. I like his sense of the natural world, describing with a rich palette.---Jesse Earle Bowden, author of "Look and Tremble: A Novel of West Florida."

"Provinces of Night" takes its name from a line in a book by Cormac McCarthy and this is likely no coincidence as William Gay resembles McCarthy stylistically, though possibly being a bit more wordy along the way. His characters here run the line of shades of gray, not merely presenting good and evil, and offer some true glimpses of human nature along the way.

The story is that of the Bloodworths, from father E.F., who left his family years ago and has now returned, through his wandering and variously afflicted boys, to his book-reading grandson, Fleming. As an abandoned young man who has been dealt life's toughest cards, it is reaffirming to see him withstand so much and still retain the will to make something good of his life.

Full of humor and insight, this is a book worth reading slowly and savoring. You'll feel like you're there as Gay paints the scenes.

Gay has been compared to Faulkner and this is not a great stretch. Though he tries too hard to make a metaphor work sometimes, it doesn't detract from the overall brilliance of this book - well worthy of all its praise!

Finding THE LONG HOME powerful and fun to read, I was excited to get my hands on this, Mr. Gay's new novel. PROVINCES OF NIGHT exceeded my expectations. Fleming Bloodworth and his grandfather E. F. make an extrodinary pair, the former finding pain and love and bursting with a desire for life (yet with enough wisdom to learn from the latter), and the old man who's come home to find...something, even he's not sure what. A host of eccentric characters round out this work, from a bitter son who casts spells on his enemies, to the funniest adolescent since Cormac McCarthy's Harrogate in SUTTREE. Having grown up with stories of the south, I found Gay's details rich and true. He seems to be writing for himself, drawing on personal stories, humorous experiences and pain and reminds me of other great writers, Cormac McCarthy and Hemingway to name two. I look for an honest voice in fiction and I have certainly found one in William Gay. He is one of the unsung heroes of southern fiction - hell, of fiction period, and he's only written two novels. Here's to many more tales told by this astonishing author.

The main character in this story is Private Ellgae Williams. It is set in an Army Post. Private Ellgae Williams is a shy but determined young man. He is very dedicated to the army and his assigned work. Even when not on duty the private likes to hang around the post. The antagonists in this story are Captain Penderton and his wife. Captain Penderton is a very hostile man. He comes off as a strong man, but in reality he is very weak. He is a coward in many ways, he never stood up for himself especially to his wife. Mrs. Penderton isn't a modest person at all. She is the strong person in the family and takes advantage of that in every way. She is the kind of person that runs around on her spouse and doesn't even think twice about it. Carson McCullers used flashbacks in this book as well as metaphors. She portrayed real problems that happen in real life. McCullers did a very good job on this piece of work. The way she described the characters, I could picture each one, vividly. McCullers did a very good job at proving that the world was not only all about the "American Dream" and the people's goals toward that, but also the ones that rebelled and were not afraid to do the unusual. If you like books with twists and turns from the usual plots then you will enjoy this book as much as I did.

Carson McCullers (a woman, by the way, despite another reviewer's assumption to the contrary) wrote much fiction involving the nature of love. She was never quite as romantic as that may sound: McCullers was one of the masters of the Southern Gothic genre, and Reflections in a Golden Eye is her best work. Her characters are stark and clear, her style crisp, and the action visible. While this is an easy novel to read in some senses, it is more of a prose poem in a novel form. The story deals with two couples on a drab and dull Army base and a young private's animalistic "awakening." His awakening coincides with those of the Captain and the Major's frail yet strong-willed, and bordering-on-insane, wife (whom McCullers seems to identify with most). McCullers dips in the consciousnesses of the five major characters and the result is chillingly beautiful. It's a shame this, McCuller's second novel and most unique of all her works, is out of print.

One would expect a 20-something year old in 1940s southern USA to be all prim and nice, with no knowledge of such things as deep emotional trauma and burning homosexual desires. Well Carson McCullers defied conventional wisdom and not only was aware of such matters but deftly encapsulated it in a short, brutal novel. Reflections in a Golden Eye is a painful examination of the wrecked lives of two couples (, and other characters, ) on a military base in the South. There is little in the way of action or story per se, but it is her examination of characters which makes this novel such a winner.

This novel is not for everyone. It is rather depressing, with everyone leading neurotic lives. No happy endings, and one has to wonder if there is moral to the story. But those who can tolerate looking at the world without wearing rose-colored glasses will appreciate this masterful work.

PS - the novel is MUCH better than the film. And I enjoyed it better than her other famous novel The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.

A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams is a play about class and gender, and how they interact in a specific time period and place, much more than it is about individual characters. The main characters embody some of the most stereotypical characteristics of all time. Stanley Kowalski - the male lead - is a working class man who uses strength to succeed in his job and his marriage. His wife, Stella, demurely accepts Stanley's verbal and physical abuse because she loves him. Their world is a perfect balance of male/ female, active/ passive, love/ fear, and rough/gentle, until Stella's sister comes to visit. Blanche is much more rounded character, but she is stereotypically a southern belle and a snob, to the point where she lies about her age and how much she drinks because it is the ladylike thing to do. The play unfolds rather fascinatingly, and it quite well written - dramatic but with enough humor to make it bearable. There are an abundance of very obvious symbols, which might tire the reader after awhile. Desire covers a lot of themes, including, as I said before, class and gender, desire and the south, which may be too much for one play, but Williams pulls it off well. The reader comes away with a good sense of the New Orleans working class after the war. A good play, but probably a better performance than read, as befits a play.

Tennessee Williams's masterfully written drama explores the extremes of fantasy versus reality, the Old South versus the New South, and primitive desire versus civilized restraint. Its meager 142 page spine is no indication of the complexity and significance that Williams achieves in his remarkable work. A strong aspect of the play is Williams's amazingly vivid portrayal of desperate and forsaken characters who symbolize and presumably resolve his battles between extremes. He created and immortal woman in the character of Blanche DuBois, the haggard and fragile southern beauty whose pathetic last grasp at happiness is cruelly destroyed. She represents fantasy for her many outrageous attempts to elude herself, and she likewise represents the Old South with only her manners and pretentions remaining after the foreclosure of her family's estate. The movie version of A Streetcar Named Desire shot Marlon Brando to fame as Stanley Kowalski, a sweat-shirted barbarian and crudely sensual brother-in-law who precipitated Blanche's tragedy. He symbolizes unrestrained desire with the recurring animal motif that follows him throughout the play. A third major character, Stella Kowalski, acts as mediator between her constantly conflicting husband and older sister. She magnifies the New South in her renounce of the Old pretentions by marrying a blue collar immigrant. Conflicts between these and other vividly colorful characters always in light of the cultural New Orleans backdrop provide a reader with a lasting impression and an awe for Williams's impeccable style and intense dialogue.

Tennessee Williams' play "A Streetcar Named Desire" came to Broadway in 1947, won the Pulitzer Prize for drama, and was made into an award-winning film. But you don't have to wait to see a stage or video version of the play. "Streetcar" is one of those theatrical triumphs which also succeeds in book form as a compelling read.

Taking place in New Orleans, "Streetcar" tells the painful story of aging southern belle Blanche DuBois, her sister Stella, Stella's brutish husband Stanley, and the circle of people who frequent Stella's home. Williams creates an incisive examination of human sexuality and socioeconomic difference. His characters come to life with powerful dialogue; this play is a heartbreaking read.

A compelling companion text for "Streetcar" would be Eugene O'Neill's classic play "Anna Christie," which won the Pulitzer for the 1921-22 theater season. Like "Streetcar," "Anna" deals with male expectations of female sexuality in a powerful way.

Willams' Blanche is truly one of the most memorable female characters in United States literature. "Streetcar" is an unforgettable tapestry of desire, shame, and disturbing revelations. An essential text for anybody with an interest in 20th century drama.

"Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" is another masterpiece by Tennessee Williams, who was truly one of the 20th century's greatest playwrights. This play was presented in New York in the 1950s, and in book form it is an excellent read.

I haven't looked at other editions, but the Signet edition contains two different versions of Act 3, along with a note by Williams explaining how director Elia Kazan persuaded him to write a second version. This feature makes the book particularly useful for teachers and students.

"Cat" takes place on a Southern plantation, and deals with a wealthy, but very dysfunctional family. Williams creates stunning dialogue for his characters: Brick, the bitter, alcoholic ex-athlete; Brick's frustrated wife Margaret; "Big Daddy," the patriarch, who is dying of cancer; and the rest. Williams also establishes the plantation's original owners as a haunting presence through the lines of his characters.

"Cat" is an explosive family drama about greed, secrets, guilt, alcoholism, and sexual frustration. Williams' characters are larger-than-life, and even grotesque, but Williams never loses a grasp on their essential humanity. An important book for those with a serious interest in American drama.

Tennessee Williams's Pulitzer Prize winning play "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" is a reverie filled drama of lust, greed, and death that puts emphasis on the interaction of families. Williams creates universal characters that are pathetic yet familiar and therefore warrant the reader's sympathy. He writes with such deceptive simplicity that he masks his characters's inner turmoil initially, making the turnout of such characterizations intriguing. The play presents that humanity isn't beautiful while attempting to shed light on the emotional lies that govern the interaction of families. "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof"'s intertwining themes of the lie of life and the deception of death provide the reader with insight towards the amblivalence of life.

To say so much within such a short piece is a mystery within itself. The sheer power of the plot is testimony of Williams's genius. The play is beautifully constructed and hits upon many themes and emotions with clarity and precision, making it an enjoyable read while having substance. I did an analysis of this book for my junior Reading class, and recommend the read to anyone seeking high drama and a well rounded take on death.

Cat on A Hot Tin roof deals with love and loss, but once looked into deeper, deals with each character's take on death. this play is genius, and to give you a taste--"...But a man can't buy his life with it [money], he can't buy back his life with it when his life has been spent, that's one thing not offered in the Europe fire sale or in the Amercian markets or any markets on earth, a mans can't but his life with it, he can't buy back his life when his life is finished."

Its surrealistic "dream within a dream" stylings makes "Camino Real" (pronounced "Kam-uh-no Reel") one of Tennessee Williams' more difficult plays to read (e.g., Don Quixote and Lord Byron both pass through the Camino Real - a weigh station for lost souls). However, this play (which I first encountered in a college literature class when I was 24), more so than any of his other works, offers us the biggest glimpse into Williams's soul.

For my money, the theme of this play is coming to terms with the thought of growing older and possibly becoming irrelevant/obsolete. For Williams, such concepts terrified him on both professional and personal levels: (a) he wrote this play at a time when his "star" had already fallen, and he was no longer the "golden boy" of Broadway; (b) additionally, Williams was an aging member of the homosexual community (which emphasizes youth and beauty to a fault). Thus, as he explores such themes, Williams (whether intentional or not) offers us a ringside view into his fears and emotions as he wrestles with such inevitabilities and resolves to look for reasons to remain positive about life regardless.

Side note: on a lyrical level, the play is filled with dialogue that is at times poetic (e.g., "Make voyages!- Attempt them! - there is nothing else.")

Not necessarily easy reading, but definitely worth reading!

Yes, perhaps I'm biased, because I was in this play at my university and so the characters were all too real for me because my friends were playing them, but I really loved this story. The symbolism is just great and there's a lot of food for thought. Many people who came to see our production didn't understand the work, and I must admit, it is obscure and fairly difficult to understand. Don't let that get in your way. This is a must read, if only because of those cooky and creepy street cleaners, and a bunch of cameos by some very famous characters.

"It had its Broadway premiere on March 19,1953, at the Martin Beck Theatre. The production was directed by Elia Kazan, with the assitance of Anna Sokolow."

In his preface to this book, Irving Younger applauds Darrow's systematic annihilation of poor, befuddled Bryan. "Analysis of this kind of drama is irrelevant. One can only smile, admire, and wonder," he says. Although Younger declined to analyze Darrow's examination of Bryan, the contemporary press (most of whom staunchly supported teaching evolution) were not so reticent to judge. Edward J. Larsen, in the Pultizer Prize winning history of the trial, "Summer for the Gods," summed it up thus: "[T]he nation's press initially saw little of lasting significance in the trial [whose centerpiece was Darrow's examination of Bryan] beyond its having exposed Bryan's empty head and Darrow's mean spirit." p. 202.

Some quotes from contemporary sources found on page 207 of Larsen's book: Walter Lippman of the "New York World": "Now that the chuckling and giggling over the heckling of Bryan by Darrow has subsided it is dawning upon the friends of evolution that science was rendered a wretched service by that exhibition." The New Orleans "Times Picayune": "Mr. Darrow, with his sneering 'I object to prayer!' and with his ill-natured and arrogant cross-examination of Bryan on the witness stand, has done more to stimulate 'anti-evolution' legislation in the United States than Mr. Bryan and his fellow literalists, left alone, could have hoped for." The Vanderbilt University humanist and champion of evolution, Edwin Mims: "When Clarence Darrow is put forth as the champion of the forces of enlightenment to fight the battle for scientific knowledge, one feels almost persuaded to become a Fundamentalist."

As Larsen explains in "Summer for the Gods," Darrow's examination assumed the status of a legendary victory only after the release of the McCarthy-era morality play "Inherit the Wind," which took great dramatic license in depicting the examination as having "won" the Scopes Trial.

When a lawyer performs as mean-spirited an examination as Darrow did of Bryan, the lawyer's rabid fans are enthralled, his enemies are enraged, and those on the fence are encouraged to join the enemy. Darrow's examination of Bryan should be studied as a fine example of how not to perform a cross examination.

The public recollection of what happened when Darrow questioned Bryan in the case of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes is a mixture of topics and outbursts. Most accounts of the trial, as well as the fictionalized version in "Inherit the Wind," include the discussion of the Bible Stories of Jonah being swallowed by the whale/big fish and Joshua making the sun stand still. The crucial point of the exchange comes when Darrow forced Bryan to admit the days of creation in Genesis were not 24-hour days, thereby forcing Bryan to deny the Fundamentalist's literal interpretation of the Bible. Scopes himself called it the "great shock that Darrow had been laboring for all afternoon." However, the actual exchange does not support such an interpretation. Darrow specifically asked about the number of days involved in creation. A fuller examination of the transcript, which this volume provides, indicates Darrow was trying to get at not only the length of creation but the DATE as well, intending to get Bryan to endorse Bishop Usher's infamous calculation the earth was less than six thousand years old in order to confront Bryan with evidence of civilizations considerably older. The key to the exchange is that Bryan gives a preemptive answer, declaring the days of creation were not 24-hour days BEFORE Darrow asked the specific question, in order to avoid agreeing to Usher's flawed calculations. More importantly, Bryan volunteered the information twice, each time cutting Darrow off from a particular line of question.

Moral of the Story: When there are primary documents available, such as this volume which provides the entire transcript of the trial as taking from the stenographers record, you are better served by reading them rather than secondary sources that tend to privilege a play/movie rather than what really happened.

Finally, you don't have to hear someone else's take on one of the most spectacular court cases this country has ever seen. Decide for yourself who outwitted who in this battle of the courtroom titans. This book includes only the exact words from the cross-examination of William Jennings Bryan by Clarence Darrow. A must read for all those who wish to know how the cross-examination really ran.

I first read a William Gay story in Harper's magazine. What a great story, I thought. Who is this guy? What else has he written? He's a fiftysomething ex-carpenter. And he's written "The Long Home."

The first 100 pages or so immediately hooked me, making me think I had found the next Cormac McCarthy. And at times, when the prose was clicking, it didn't feel as if I was reading a book as walking in someone else's dream. In a fit of joy I almost posted a review without finishing the book. I'm glad I finished it, though, because the last half doesn't fufill the first half's promise.

The last read like a primer on how to construct a formulaic Southern goth romance. It's very pedestrian, very planned. Will Winer side with the forces of good with Oliver or will Hardin infect him with his evil? Will he get Amber Rose? It's all very melodramatic and conventional in the end. Cormac McCarthy did it better with "All The Pretty Horses", mixing melodrama and lyricism to a potent affecting mix. "The Long Home" has moments where the prose doesn't seem to be written as it is handed down from God himself. And then it collapses into a "Cold Mountain" mush. And I truly and deeply dispised "Cold Mountain."

All in all, the man has talent and I will read his stuff. But I'll be wary.

I read this book with an increasing sense of wonder and awe. William Gay has written a moving, heartbreaking novel with people I believe and believe in, with language both poetic and taut, with detail to die for, with humor and wisdom and heart and darkness and a sense of place you might read a thousand books and never find. Buy this book and wrap it in Mylar and stand it on the shelf with your Faulkner and your Cormac McCarthy, and then take it down and start reading it over again. We all keep hearing about the next new voice in American fiction. Well folks, William Gay is a whole varied chorus of voices, all singing in perfect harmony. The song is dark, god yes, but you can't stop listening.

The title of this review may seem pretentious, but, as an author, I rejoice in the literary art of story-telling at it's highest level. Mr. Gay, who I had the pleasure of meeting in Nashville at The Southern Festival of the Book, is a masterful story-teller. His characters are lively and real. The inner-workings of the mind and the tenacity of the southern male are reborn in this tale. Though some critics have said his work is Faulknerian in tone, Mr. Gay's prose is far more readable and, in my opinion, lyrical. His love for the area and the people about which he writes are reminiscent of Pat Conroy and his attachment of South Carolina's Low Country. Congratulations to William Gay for a job well done.