"Literature has always more resembled a torch race than a furious dispute among heirs."-Thornton Wilder

"Here is a man who knows the classics backwards and forwards. Nothing could have been more natural to him than to draw upon these giants of the past, stand on their shoulders and weave their ideas and techniques into the texture of his own writing in order to forge something new and original."-Ken Ludwig, from his introduction

These six masterful translations and adaptations of plays by other authors-four of them previously unpublished-illuminate a lost chapter in Thornton Wilder's career as a dramatist, and reveal him passing the torch in the continuum of literary greats. Included in this volume are Wilder's impeccable translations of Ibsen's A Doll's House, Sartre's The Victors, and Lucrece by Andre Obey; and his inspired adaptations of The Bride of Torozko by Otto Indig, The Beaux' Stratagem by George Farquhar, and The Matchmaker by Johann Nestroy (itself the source for the popular musical Hello, Dolly!).