English Professor's Book Honored by the Modern Language Association

Professor of English Albert J. Devlin’s publication, The Selected Letters of Tennessee Williams: Volume 1, 1920-1945, received the Morton N. Cohen Award for a Distinguished Edition of Letters from the Modern Language Association (MLA) of America at its annual meeting in December 2001. In addition, the Hartford (Conn.) Stage Company presents a staged version of Devlin’s publication, which was first staged at City Center in New York in May 2001, from January 10 to 27, 2002.

Volume I of The Selected Letters contains 900 surviving letters Tennessee Williams wrote in the early part of his career. Williams’ estate agreed to give Devlin and Pennsylvania State University Professor Nancy Tischler exclusive publication rights to the letters in 1995. The scholars then reviewed thousands of Williams’ letters to friends, family, editors, agents and critics during a span of 60 years.

The letters included in the book span 25 years, beginning with Tom Williams as an 8-year-old schoolboy and ending with an account of his Broadway hit The Glass Menagerie. The letters show the style, wit and insight of the author; they also reveal his loneliness, depression and painful cries for help. Williams dropped out of MU and eventually dropped out of Washington University and the University of Iowa. Still he was determined to become a writer.

"The college letters cast MU and Columbia – which Williams described as 'charming' – in a positive light," Devlin says. "Here a shy freshman made new friends, pledged a fraternity, found a retreat from the parental turmoil of St. Louis and wisely neglected his courses in order to write."

"The published letters of Tennessee Williams make available primary research material that until now has been locked away," says Devlin. "The Selected Letters confirms the importance of his career and reinforces the view of him as a major literary presence. The MLA award and the continuing interest in staging the letters is gratifying because it indicates both academic and popular interest in Tennessee Williams scholarship."

Devlin and Tischler are now working on Volume 2 of Williams’ letters, which is tentatively scheduled for publication by New Directions in spring 2004.

For more information, contact Al Devlin, 573-882-3766, DevlinA@missouri.edu.

Additional links:

English Department
Modern Language Association

Mississippi Writers Page: Tennessee Williams [University of Mississippi]
American Masters: Tennessee Williams [PBS]

<< back to news
<< back to archives