ARTHUR MILLER: A PLAYWRIGHT'S LIFE AND WORKS

"Arthur Miller is one of the most highly regarded and widely performed playwrights of our time. With his probing and perceptive dramas, he succeeded in charting the landscape of the American psyche to create classics of modern theater that have found enthusiastic audiences all over the world. Enoch Brater's concise literary biography - the first new study to appear since the playwright's death - gives the general reader a welcome introduction to this most political and moral of writers, whose keen social conscience and insights into human nature have made him a cornerstone of contemporary culture." "Professor Brater follows Miller's career from his prizewinning student days at the University of Michigan, through the landmark success of his 1949 drama, Death of a Salesman, to his doomed marriage to the actress Marilyn Monroe and beyond. Examining seminal works, including All My Sons, The Crucible and A View from the Bridge, as well as commenting on Miller's journalism, fiction, screenplays and acclaimed autobiography, Brater looks at how the writer achieved a fusion of political allegory, family drama, realism and expressionism, and themes of unrest and redemption to stunning - and often devastating - effect. Supported by a wide selection of personal and public photographs, this new study is an informed and timely study of Miller's life and works."--Jacket.