WILDER, THORNTON (NIVEN)

born April 17, 1897, Madison, Wis., U.S. died Dec. 7, 1975, Hamden, Conn. American writer, whose innovative novels and plays reflect his views of the universal truths in human nature. After graduating from Yale University in 1920, Wilder studied archaeology in Rome. From 1930 to 1937 he taught dramatic literature and the classics at the University of Chicago. His first novel, The Cabala (1926), while set in 20th-century Rome, is essentially a fantasy about the death of the pagan gods. His most popular novel, The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927), which was adapted for film and television, examines the lives of five persons who died in the collapse of a bridge in Peru in the 18th century. The Woman of Andros (1930) is an interpretation of Terence's Andria. Accused of being a Greek rather than an American writer, Wilder in Heaven's My Destination (1934) wrote about a quixotically good hero in a contemporary setting. His later novels are The Ides of March (1948), The Eighth Day (1967), and Theophilus North (1973). Wilder's plays engage the audience in make-believe by having the actors address the spectators directly and by discarding props and scenery. The Stage Manager in Our Town (1938) talks to the audience, as do the characters in the farcical The Matchmaker (1954). The Matchmaker was made into a film in 1958 and adapted in 1964 into the immensely successful musical Hello, Dolly!, which was also made into a film. Wilder's other plays include The Skin of Our Teeth (1942), which employs deliberate anachronisms and the use of the same characters in various geological and historical periods to show that human experience is much the same whatever the time or place.