The Portable Arthur Miller [antikvár]

Biographical Notes m There can be no doubt at this point in our hterary and theatrical history as to Arthur Miller's position in it. Among the playwrights since the emergence of Eugene O'Neill only Lillian Hellman, Chfford Odets, and Tennessee Williams are at all comparable to him. Hellman's and Odets's writing does not possess so wide a formal range, nor has it extended over so long a period. Only Williams has been more prolific. Miller is the author of nine plays, a screenplay, numerous short stories and essays, a novel, occasional poems, reportage, and, most recently, commentary on a trip to the Soviet Union which accompanies Inge Morath's photographs assembled under the title In Russia. Death of a Salesman, which won the Pulitzer Prize in drama in 1949, has been produced in virtually every one of the world's capitals and has been read in book form by several million people who have never seen it performed—unusual for a contemporary play. When he was asked recently in what way his plays were related to the events of his life. Miller replied, "In a sense all my plays are autobiographical." The artist creates his biography through his work even as the events of his life serve to shape him. He was born on 112th Street in Manhattan on October 17, 1915. He is one of three children. He has an elder brother in