Thornton Wilder

Biography/bibliography in: "Contemporary Authors". New Revision Series, Vol. 132, pp. 410-415. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2005.

Pictured on a 32¢ US commemorative postage stamp in the Literary Arts series, issued 17 April 1997.

His farcical play "The Matchmaker" (1954) was adapted in 1964 into a Broadway musical comedy Hello, Dolly! It was made into a film in 1969, starring Barbra Streisand as Dolly Levi.

Introduced writer-director Garson Kanin to his future wife, actress-writer Ruth Gordon in 1940.

He also won the Pulitzer Prize for drama for his play "Our Town" (1938), and again for "The Skin Of Our Teeth" (1943). During WWII he served in the Army Air Force, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. At that time Wilder wrote the screenplay for 'Shadow of a Doubt', a film by Alfred Hitchcock.

His second novel "The Bridge of San Luis Rey" brought him his first Pulitzer Prize in 1928.

in French from Princeton in 1926.

His first novel, "The Cabala" (1926), reflects his experiences in Europe, alluding to American expatriates around Gertrude Stein.

Wilder published his first play "The Trumpet Shall Sound" (1920) in Yale Literary Magasine.

Thornton Niven Wilder was the second of five children in the family of a newspaper editor and a U. S. diplomat, Amos Parker Wilder, and Isabella Niven Wilder. He spent part of his childhood with his father, who was a Consul General in Hong Kong and China between 1906 and 1914. Wilder finished high school in California, received his undergraduate degree at Yale, and went to study archeology at the American Academy in Rome. He earned his M. A.