Early Stories by Tennessee Williams is an edited collection of thirty previously unpublished short stories written in the 1930s, when Tennessee Williams was living in the Midwest during a tumultuous period for the nation and himself.
The stories highlight aspects of the writer’s biography relative to his young adult years in St. Louis, Columbia, and the Missouri Ozarks, offering insight into the relationships between the author, his family, and close friends. The influence of proletarian fiction and leftist ideas are evident in Williams’s stories of the Great Depression, as are themes of sexual turmoil and inner passions inspired by authors like D. H. Lawrence.
In notes for each story, additional context is provided regarding locations, occupations, and individuals. All of this enriches a critical understanding of Tennessee Williams’s major works such as The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Night of the Iguana, and Suddenly Last Summer.
“Had Tennessee Williams never written a play, he might still have entered the U.S. literary canon as a short story writer. This collection of his early short stories, brilliantly edited and annotated by Tom Mitchell, experiments with many of the themes, images, symbols, and even characters that populate Williams’s later work, both his fiction and his theatre. Early Stories is an important contribution to the already vast Williams oeuvre.”—John S. Bak, Université de Lorraine
“Reading Tennessee Williams’s early fiction and poetry, guided by pioneering Williams scholar Tom Mitchell, we view the dawn of America’s great playwright. Sigmund Freud suggested that what we don’t talk about is what’s most important. Tennessee Williams talked a lot about his time in Mississippi and in New Orleans. He didn’t say as much about the Midwest, where Williams lived from the time he was seven until he was twenty-nine. This wonder-filled anthology does the talking for him.”—David Kaplan, curator, the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival
“It is from these succulent acorns that the towering art of Tennessee Williams grew. He gathers together passions, sexual repressions, cruel mores, and untarnished ambitions in these eager stories, which sparkle on their own as well as point toward the soaring work to follow.”—Jewelle Gomez, author, The Gilda Stories
“Tom Mitchell’s collection of Tennessee Williams’s short stories from the 1930s, written before Williams had become one of America’s most lauded playwrights, provides invaluable insight into the world of a thoughtful outsider who would go on to become the champion of the ‘fugitive kind,’ crafting portraits of truth spoken from the margins of society. Providing glimpses of the influences that shaped Williams’s sensibility and that created some of the most famous characters in the American theatre, Early Stories by Tennessee Williams is a must-read for anyone interested in his life and work.”—Annette J. Saddik, City University of New York (CUNY)
