When Stephen Vincent Bent died in 1943 at the age of 44, all of America mourned the loss. Bent was one of the countrys most well known poets of the first half of the twentieth century and as a fiction writer, he had an even larger audience. This book is a collection of essays celebrating Bent and his writing. The first group of essays contains pieces about Bents life, times, and personal relationships. Thomas Carr Bent reminisces about his father in the first essay, and others consider Bents marriage to his wife Rosemary; Archibald MacLeish, Thornton Wilder and Bent as friends, liberal humanists and public activists; and his friendships with Philip Barry, Jed Harris, and Thornton Wilder. The second group contains essays about Bents poetry, fiction, and drama. They discuss Bents role in the development of historical poetry in America, John Browns Body and the Civil War, Hawthorne, Bent and historical fiction, Bents Faustian America, the adaptation of "The Devil and Daniel Webster" to drama and then to film, Bents use of fantasy and science fiction, and Bent as a dramatist for stage, screen and radio.

The essays in "Thornton Wilder: New Perspectives" constitute a comprehensive critical reassessment at a time of renewed interest in the writer. Wilder is best known for "Our Town "and "The Bridge of San Luis Rey, "both winners of a Pulitzer Prize, making Wilder still the only writer to be so honored for both drama and fiction. His other fiction, in particular, is far less familiar to a wider readership. The authors of these essays aim to contextualize Wilder's work historically and to show that Wilder's handling of questions of religion, American identity, gender, and ethics should vault him into the ranks of major American novelists. Specifically, this anthology""includes groundbreaking work on the application of queer theory to "Our Town;" on Wilder's screenplay for the Alfred Hitchcock film "Shadow of a Doubt;" and on Wilder's adaptations of Ibsen's "A Doll's House, " Farquhar's "The Beaux' Stratagem, " and his own "The Long Christmas Dinner."