This definitive collection establishes Williams as a major American fiction writer of the twentieth century.

Including one new story and an Index by author of every story that has ever appeared in the series, this new volume offers a "spectacular tapestry of fictional achievement" ("Entertainment Weekly").

One of the greatest American dramatists of the 20th century, Tennessee Williams is known for his sensitive characterizations, poetic yet realistic writing, ironic humor, and depiction, of harsh realties in human relationship. His work is frequently included in high school and college curricula, and his plays are continually produced. Critical Companion to Tennessee Williams includes entries on all of Williams's major and minor works, including A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Glass Menagerie, a novel, a collection of short stories, two poetry collections, and personal essays; places and events related to his works; major figures in his life; his literary influences; and issues in Williams scholarship and criticism. Appendixes include a complete list of Williams's works; a list of research libraries with significant Williams holdings; and a bibliography of primary and secondary sources.

ATTACK OF THE GIANT TENT WORMS. Billy and Clara are nearing the end of their summer vacation on Cape Cod, as their cottage is being devoured by billions of tent-worms. Worse, Billy has just gotten word from his oncologist that there are no more treatment options for his brain cancer. A darkly humorous exploration of which is more terrifying: bugs or death? (1 man, 1 woman.) DESIRE QUENCHED BY TOUCH. In 1950s New Orleans, a black masseur must account for the disappearance of his favorite white customer. People don’t just vanish inside massage parlors… (3 men.) THE FIELD OF BLUE CHILDREN. Everything in Layley’s life is going according to plan. She belongs to the best sorority at her university and has a devoted boyfriend who could easily become a devoted husband. But Layley suspects that there is more to life than stifling conformity. So she signs up for a poetry class in the hopes of expressing herself. There she meets Dylan, a sensitive poet with whom she enjoys a night of passion that opens up a truly revolutionary prospect: living a life of her own. (3 men, 4 women.) ORIFLAMME. Oriflamme (noun): A red or scarlet banner; a knight’s standard; a rallying principle…Sickly Anna Kimball, on her final day, reaches out for, and becomes, all of these. (1 man, 1 woman.) YOU LIED TO ME ABOUT CENTRALIA. Jim, the Gentleman Caller, leaves the Wingfields’ disastrous dinner party to meet his fiancée Betty’s train. The evening won’t turn out the way either of them expected. (1 man, 1 woman.) THE RESEMBLANCE BETWEEN A VIOLIN CASE AND A COFFIN. Tom and his sister Roe’s childhood comes to a painful end when Richard Miles, who moves in light, arrives in town with his violin in a case. (2 men, 4 women.)

Volume VII of the Cambridge History of American Literature examines a broad range of American literature of the past half-century, revealing complex relations to changes in society. Christopher Bigsby discusses American dramatists from Tennessee Williams to August Wilson, showing how innovations in theatre anticipated a world of emerging countercultures and provided America with an alternative view of contemporary life. Morris Dickstein describes the condition of rebellion in fiction from 1940 to 1970, linking writers as diverse as James Baldwin and John Updike. John Burt examines writers of the American South, describing the tensions between modernization and continued entanglements with the past. Wendy Steiner examines the postmodern fictions since 1970, and shows how the questioning of artistic assumptions has broadened the canon of American literature. Finally, Cyrus Patell highlights the voices of Native American, Asian American, Chicano, gay and lesbian writers, often marginalized but here discussed within and against a broad set of national traditions.

Tennessee Williams' 1944 play The Glass Menagerie centers around a family of three, Tom, Laura, and Amanda Wingfield, exploring what it means to share a household with people whose individual psychological eccentricities threaten to overwhelm the whole. Told retroactively in the format of a memory play, the protagonist, Tom, an aspiring poet by night and warehouse worker by night, introduces the audience to the conditions which led him to abandon his family in pursuit of his independence. This informative edition explores the themes of family dysfunction in Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie, providing readers with a critical look at the intersection of literature and sociology. The book includes an examination of Williams' life and influences and takes a hard look at key ideas related to the play, such as the role of guilt in family relationships and the breakdown of the American dream. Readers are also offered contemporary perspectives on family dysfunction through the discussion of toxic or overbearing parents and the effects of alcoholism on families.

In a series of amusing rules, cellist Alice McVeigh describes exactly how to succeed in the music profession (or not?). Fruity, feisty and fizzy, and adorned with cartoons by Private Eye's Noel Ford - All Risks Musical is the book every conductor will want to ban.