| | + | Wilder was born April 17, 1897, in Madison, Wisconsin.<ref>https://www.biography.com/people/thornton-wilder-9531264</ref> He spent some of his childhood in [[China]], but left due to unstable political conditions, and was educated in California.<ref>http://www.thorntonwilder.com/about-wilder/biography/</ref> He graduated from Berkeley High School and attended Oberlin College, [[Yale University]], the American Academy in Rome, and [[Princeton University]], and served in [[World War One]].<ref>http://www.notablebiographies.com/We-Z/Wilder-Thornton.html</ref> During his education, he wrote a novel, ''Cabala'' (1926), and a play, ''The Trumpet Shall Sound'', but ''The Bridge of San Luis Rey'' (1927) was his first successful novel.<ref>http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Thornton_Wilder</ref> He translated from foreign plays in the 1930s, but became very successful with the play ''Our Town'' (1938), about searching a small town for universal truths. He also wrote ''The Merchant of Yonkers'', a flop, revised it into ''The Matchmaker'', another flop, and let someone else write it as the wildly successful musical, ''Hello, Dolly!''.<ref>http://biography.yourdictionary.com/thornton-niven-wilder</ref> His later works include the Pulitzer Prize winning play ''The Skin of Our Teeth'' (1943), the less successful plays ''A Life in the Sun'' (1955), ''Someone from Assisi'' (1962), ''Infancy'' (1962), and ''Childhood'' (1962), and the novels ''The Woman of Andros'' (1930), ''Heaven's My Destination'' (1934), ''The Ides of March'' (1948), ''The Eighth Day'' (1967), and ''Theophilus North'' (1973).<ref>"Wilder, Thornton." ''Encyclopedia Britannica Online''.</ref> |