Thornton Wilder The Bridge of San Luis Rey and Other Novels 1926-1948

E-185: The Library of America. Very Good. 2009. Hardcover. Hardcover. 8vo. Library of America/The Viking Press, New York. 2009. 750 pgs. DJ has light shelf-wear present to the DJ extremities. Bound in brown cloth with gilt titles present to the spine. Previous owner's name present to the front pastedown. Text is clean and free of marks, binding tight and solid, boards very lightly rubbed and worn. Thornton Wilder was the rare writer whose achievements as a playwright were matched by equal abilities as a novelist. As companion to its volume of Wilder's collected plays, The Library of America's edition of his early novels and stories brings together five novels that highlight his wit, erudition, innovative formal structures, and philosophical wisdom. Drawing on the post-collegiate year he spent in Rome, Wilder fashioned in The Cabala a tale of youthful enchantment with the Eternal City in the form of a fictitious memoir of an American student and the enigmatic coterie of noble Romans who draw him into their midst. He followed this debut novel two years later with The Bridge of San Luis Rey, which catapulted him to literary prominence and earned him the first of his three Pulitzer prizes. Set in 18th-century Peru, the book is a kind of theological detective story concerning a friar's investigations into the lives of five individuals before they were killed in a bridge collapse. An elegantly told parable, with credible historical ambience and psychologically rounded characters, The Bridge of San Luis Rey is primarily a probing inquiry into the nature of destiny: Why did God allow these particular people to die? E-185; Library Of America No. 194; 8.1 X 5.1 X 1.1 inches; 750 pages .