The prefatory note to the volume, Three Plays by Thornton Wilder, states that he is regarded by many as America's greatest living playwright. We may discount this considerably as a publisher's exaggeration, but there is no question that his name will appear on almost anyone's list of major contemporary American playwrights—and probably nearer the top than the bottom.

This is a little surprising when one stops to think that his reputation rests almost entirely on three plays, one of them an adaptation. True, he has written a number of one-act plays, one or two of which have become classics of the amateur theatre. He has translated André Obey's Lucrèce for Katharine Cornell and he has adapted A Doll's House for Ruth Gordon.