From Publishers Weekly
This second volume of the playwright's correspondence begins at a time, after the staging of The Glass Menagerie, when Williams had "no interest... in more Broadway productions." It wouldn't be long, though, before he started writing A Streetcar Named Desire, which would become an even greater success and was the first of many collaborations with director Elia Kazan. Williams had plenty of advice for Kazan about the staging of Streetcar and subsequent plays, and the letters reveal the active role he played in making film adaptations of his work palatable for Hollywood censors. They also display the more relaxed personality he showed with friends, sharing gossip about visitors like Carson McCullers and Gore Vidal. With those who knew about his "unconventional mode of living," as he referred to homosexuality, he could speak even more freely, though some comments about "queens" have a mean, cynical edge. But he took great pains to keep this side of his life hidden, reminding his publisher that a collection of more explicit short stories shouldn't be displayed in bookstores or even sent to St. Louis, where his mother might see it. Williams scholars Devlin and Tischler fill in the background details effectively through interstitial notes, producing a life story that gives voice to a great playwright. B&w illus. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

John Lahr, The New Yorker
His letters are among the century's finest.

Publishers Weekly, 25 October 2004
A life story that gives voice to a great playwright.

Richard Schickel, New York Times, 26 December 2004
A self-portrait of a brave man, harassed by his demons, yet always...trying to bend them to his artistic will.

Book Description
Volume I of The Selected Letters of Tennessee Williams ends with the unexpected triumph of The Glass Menagerie. Volume II extends the correspondence from 1946 to 1957, a time of intense creativity which saw the production of A Streetcar Named Desire, The Rose Tattoo, Camino Real, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Following the immense success of Streetcar, Williams struggles to retain his prominence with a prodigious outpouring of stories, poetry, and novels as well as plays. Several major film projects, including the notorious Baby Doll, bring Williams and his collaborator Elia Kazan into conflict with powerful agencies of censorship, exposing both the conservative landscape of the 1950s and Williams' own studied resistance to the forces of conformity. Letters written to Kazan, Carson McCullers, Gore Vidal, publisher James Laughlin, and Audrey Wood, Williams' resourceful agent, continue earlier lines of correspondence and introduce new celebrity figures. The Broadway and Hollywood successes in the evolving career of America's premier dramatist vie with a string of personal losses and a deepening depression to make this period an emotional and artistic rollercoaster for Tennessee. Compiled by leading Williams scholars Albert J. Devlin, Professor of English at the University of Missouri, and Nancy M. Tischler, Professor Emerita of English at the Pennsylvania State University, Volume II maintains the exacting standard of Volume I, called by Choice: "a volume that will prove indispensable to all serious students of this author...meticulous annotations greatly increase the value of this gathering."

About the Author
Tennessee Williams (1911-1983), one of the 20th century's most superb writers, was also one of its most successful and prolific. New Directions publishes Williams' letters, short stories, poems, fiction, and over fifty of his plays including Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Glass Menagerie, Summer and Smoke, Camino Real, Sweet Bird of Youth, Night of the Iguana, Orpheus Descending, and The Rose Tattoo.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Volume I of The Selected Letters of Tennessee Williams ends with the unexpected triumph of The Glass Menagerie. Volume II extends the correspondence from 1946 to 1957, a time of intense creativity which saw the production of A Streetcar Named Desire, The Rose Tattoo, Camino Real, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Following the immense success of Streetcar, Williams struggles to retain his prominence with a prodigious outpouring of stories, poetry, and novels as well as plays. Several major film projects, including the notorious Baby Doll, bring Williams and his collaborator Elia Kazan into conflict with powerful agencies of censorship, exposing both the conservative landscape of the 1950s and Williams' own studied resistance to the forces of conformity. Letters written to Kazan, Carson McCullers, Gore Vidal, publisher James Laughlin, and Audrey Wood, Williams' resourceful agent, continue earlier lines of correspondence and introduce new celebrity figures. The Broadway and Hollywood successes in the evolving career of America's premier dramatist vie with a string of personal losses and a deepening depression to make this period an emotional and artistic rollercoaster for Tennessee.

FROM THE CRITICS

Richard Schickel - The New York Times

These letters present a self-portrait of a brave man, harassed by his demons, yet always -- in those days, with riveting power -- trying to bend them to his artistic will.

Publishers Weekly