Arthur Miller

Literature / Great Playwrights

Brief biography of Arthur Miller

Life and works of American playwright and screenwriter, Arthur Miller, one of America’s leading playwrights. Death of a Salesman is regarded as his greatest play.

Arthur Miller, one of the most prominent and popular American playwrights and screenwriters, wrote some of the 20^th century’s most important and famous plays for the American theater and film productions. His best known plays include  Death of a Salesman, All My Sons and The Crucible.  

Miller was a Pulitzer Prize winner for Drama. Married to the famous actress, Marilyn Monroe (1956 to 1961), he was popular from the late 1940s until the early 1960s, during which he testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee.  

Early Life of Arthur Miller

Arthur A. Miller was born on October 17, 1915 in New York City. Just before the Great Depression his father’s business shut down, reducing the family to near poverty. This change in fortune strongly influenced Miller as seen in many of his plays depicting families destroyed because they live by the rules of a society that says money is the most important thing.

Initially, Miller was more interested in sports than literature, but all that changed when he read The Brothers Karamazov by Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky.  Miller decided to become a writer and enrolled at the University of Michigan to study journalism. 

Miller’s Plays All My Sons, The Death of a Salesman and The Crucible

Miller’s first successful play, All My Sons (1947), was performed when he was 32 years old. The story is about a factory owner who sells faulty aircraft parts during the Second World War. The play clearly shows Miller’s belief that the desire for money in American society encourages people to act immorally.  This play has been influenced by Henrik Ibsen’s The Master Builder.  

Death of a Salesman, regarded Miller’s greatest play, was produced two years later after All My Sons. It won him a Pulitzer Prize in 1949. The story is about a man who kills himself when he realizes he will never be considered a success.  

His 1953 play, The Crucible, is based on the 17^th-century Salem witch trials, actually an attack on the anti-communist trials held during the McCarthy Era. He also wrote the screenplay for Marilyn Monroe’s last movie, The Misfits.  

Miller's description in writing for the stage:

"I am in the ultimate place of vision - you can't back me up any further.

Everything is inevitable, down to the last comma". 

Legacy of Playwright Arthur Miller

Arthur Miller died on February 10, 2005. His plays have always been delicately structured, mainly focused on the major concerns of post-war America and the lives of the American people of the time.  His works, not necessarily just a pre-occupation of guilt, show more importantly, that in order to redeem the past, it should first be remembered.     

Miller was the most popular American playwright since his predecessor, Eugene O’Neill. His three greatest plays, Death of a Salesman, All My Sons and The Crucible, have remained popular.    

Works by Arthur Miller: 

All My Sons, 1947

Death of a Salesman, 1949

The Crucible, 1953

A View from the Bridge, 1955

Incident at Vichy, 1964

After the Fall, 1964

The American Clock, 1980

The Last Yankee, 1990

Broken Glass, 1994

Plain Girl, 1995

Photo Credit:

Arthur Miller. Public Domain

Resources:

Goring, Rosemary, Ed. Larousse Dictionary of Writers.  New York: Larousse, 1994

Oxford Who's Who in the 20^th Century.  Oxford: OUP, 1999

Payne, Tom. The A-Z of Great Writers.  London: Carlton, 1997

Note: I originally wrote this piece for Suite101.com, June 28, 2010. It is being republished in short version for Inspired Pen Web. 

(c) October 17, 2019. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved. 

Harper Lee

Literary Classics / Authors Datebook 

Harper Lee (Nelle Harper Lee), is the author of one of America's most beloved literary classics, To Kill a Mockingbird, loved by millions of readers worldwide. She is born this day, 28th April 1926, and died at the age of 89, 19th February 2016.

Nelle Harper Lee was born and raised in Monroeville, Alabama, and grew up during the Great Depression. Her family is descended from the American Civil War general Robert E. Lee. She followed in the footsteps of her father, a lawyer, and went to law school. However, Harper Lee had been writing since she was 7. At the age of 29 she left law school and went to New York city to pursue her writing career. She supported herself by working for an airline company.

She spent more than two years rewriting her novel after it had been accepted by a publisher. This was in 1960 when she was 34. To Kill a Mockingbird was an immediate success.  This was also the time when the civil rights movement was escalating and the book's examination of racial hatred in the South made it especially poignant. Its theme summed up with the advice of Atticus Finch (the noble lawyer) given to Scout, his young daughter: "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view - until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."

 

Below is the film Soundtrack of To Kill a Mockingbird (Elmer Bernstein), YouTube, uploaded by bobbengan. Accessed April 28, 2016.  The score for To Kill a Mockingbird, written by Elmer Bernstein, is regarded as one of the greatest film scores and has been recorded three times.

 

 

Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald

 Literature / Novel 

 

 Original Publisher: Scribner / Simon & Schuster: 1934 (F. Scott Fitzgerald's fourth and final completed novel). My copy (see cover image) is edition published 1994 by Wordsworth Editions Ltd.  

 

Tender Is the Night (1934) is a tragic, semi-autobiographical novel, the fourth and final novel completed by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. It tracks the slow moral and professional integration of a brilliant American psychiatrist, and his wife. The setting is the French Riviera (and parts of Paris and Switzerland) during the post-World War I Jazz Age.

 

The Main Characters: 

Dick Diver: A brilliant, charismatic, and promising young American psychiatrist whose charm and vitality gradually unravel through codependency and alcoholism.  

Nicole Diver (née Warren): Dick’s heiress American wife, who enters Dick's care as a psychiatric patient suffering from schizophrenia after childhood sexual abuse by her father. She was originally his mental patient at a Swiss clinic and slowly recovers her independence as Dick declines. 

Rosemary Hoyt: A young, blooming, naive American film star who enters the Divers' social circle on the French Riviera and falls in love with Dick, disrupting the couple's delicate equilibrium. 

 Tommy Barban: A hard-edged soldier of fortune who eventually becomes involved with Nicole.

The Plot

The story opens in the late 1920s on the sun-drenched French Riviera, where Dick and Nicole lead a lavish life among wealthy American expatriates. Dick is adored for his charm and healing presence. A flashback reveals that Dick met Nicole at a Swiss sanatorium. He fell in love with her and married her, acting as both her husband and her psychological anchor. However, her wealth and mental illness quietly consume his emotional energy and ambition. As Dick absorbs Nicole's trauma and emotional weight, he begins to drink heavily. His professional focus erodes, leading to a series of embarrassing public brawls, a brief affair with Rosemary Hoyt, and his eventual dismissal from a psychiatric clinic.

As Dick spirals into alcoholism and obsolescence, Nicole slowly grows stronger, more independent, and mentally stable. Empowered, Nicole has an affair with Tommy Barban, asks Dick for a divorce, and leaves him to marry Tommy. Dick drifts back to  America, bouncing through a small-town medical practice in a state of quiet professional and personal ruin.

Key Themes and Deeper Meanings 

The disintegration of a marriage, mental illness, the destructiveness of wealth and glamour, and shattered idealism.  

A video of Tender is the Night, a nostalgic, bittersweet and tender song popularised by Tony Bennett. YouTube, uploaded by felixbautista. Accessed September 11, 2019.  

 

Autobiographical Connection

 

The novel draws heavily on F.Scott Fitzgerald's own struggles with alcoholism and his wife Zelda Fitzgerald's severe mental health battles. 

 

Film Adaptation 

 

The 1962 film adaptation of Tender is the Night (directed by Henry King and starring Jason Robards and Jennifer Jones) is generally considered a melodramatic and simplified version of F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1934 novel rather than a faithful adaptation. 

 

Interesting Reads  

 

Arts Fuse Book Review for an in-depth literary appreciation of Fitzgerald's most personal novel.

 

Bauman Rare Books Blog for more info on how the novel mirrors Fitzgerald's own life and marriage. 

 

 

Why readers relate to Tender is the Night

 

Readers relate to F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night because it captures the painful, universal experience of watching ambition and bright idealism slowly disintegrate over time. They find Dick Diver's slow tragic decline from a brilliant charismatic young psychiatrist to a broken alcoholic, pathetic man as it mirrors the failures of real life. The tension of his trying to be both a loving husband and a permanent therapist to Nicole resonates with anyone who has lost themselves while trying to care for a partner through severe trauma or mental illness. Furthermore, Fitzgerald describes the disillusionment of youth, contrasting the dazzling, golden promise of youth and wealth (embodied by Rosemary Hoyt and the 1920s expatriate scene) with hollow, fragile reality.   

 

I personally connect with Tender is the Night for its deep mortal flaws. Rather than relying on one simple villain, F. Scott Fitzgerald portrays characters whose human frailties cause them to hurt one another unintentionally. His humane approach replaces moral judgement with intense psychological empathy, exploring human brokenness with tenderness rather than condemnation. 

Resources

Cambridge Guide to Literature in English by Ian Ousby (1993) 

Tender is the Night.  en.wikipedia.org/  

Tender is the Night. www.britannica.com 

Larousse Dictionary of Writers, edited by Rosemary Goring (1994)  

 

(c) Sept 11, 2011. Updated Oct 30, 2026.  Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights Reserved 

Mark Twain

Literature / Writers Datebook: November 30

 

Brief biography of Mark Twain, American children's writer, famous for the adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, and Mark Twain quotes.  

 

 

 

Children's writer and humorist Mark Twain is a fixture in American literature. He was a humorous writer who created two famous characters, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. He is also known for his travel book The Innocents Abroad.  

Through his two most popular and loved novels, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain captured his boyhood escapades along the Mississippi River.  He was one of my favourite authors as a child. He lived life the way he wanted to live and passed on amazing lines of knowledge through his books. Who can't love his stories about the adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn? ... The joys of childhood when the world is full of wonders and children are free of the heavy responsibilities of adulthood.

Early Life of Samuel Clemens

Mark Twain was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens on November 30, 1835, in Florida, Missouri, the fifth of six children. The family was poor and his father suffered ill health. In 1839 they moved to Hannibal, a rapidly growing town in the Mississippi River, and there, Twain went to the local school.

When he was 12, his father died. Twain had to leave school to find work in which he apprenticed to a printer. At age 22, he became a river pilot at a time when there were a thousand or so boats a day on the Mississippi River. For four years, he enjoyed and loved his trade, but the American Civil War ended the river traffic.

Writing Career as Mark Twain

After the war, he became a full-time journalist in 1862, and soon began to use the pen name Mark Twain. At the age of 32, he published his first important story, and two years later, published his first successful novel, the humorous travel book The Innocents Abroad. It told the story of an excursion of American pilgrims to the Holy Land.

Twain's Marriage and the Adventures of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer

In 1870, Twain married Olivia Langdon, with whom he had five children. He wrote his classic children's stories, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, in his 40s. Twain had become increasingly disillusioned by modern life and personal tragedies, and the books provided an opportunity for him to relive his boyhood  'golden days' on the Mississippi.

Both stories, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,   give a realistic picture of life around the Mississippi and are full of adventure and humor. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, considered his masterpiece, is noted for its accurate and sympathetic depiction of adolescent life.   

Twain's Later Life

His later life was plagued with several financial problems. He was also pained by declining health and the death of his favorite daughter. 

Mark Twain is regarded as a major literary figure in American history, with his classic books loved worldwide. He died at the age of 74, in Redding, Connecticut, April 21, 1910.  

Mark Twain Books

The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County and Other Sketches, 1867

The Innocents Abroad, 1869

Roughing It, 1872

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, 1876

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 1884

Pudd'nhead Wilson: a Tale, 1894

 

Suggested interesting link: 

Mark Twain Quotations, Newspaper Collections, & Related Resources. Barbara Schmidt.  Accessed November 2010.

Photo Credit:

Mark Twain.  Wikipedia Commons. / Public Domain   A portrait of the American writer Mark Twain taken by A. F. Bradley in New York, 1907.

Resources:

Goring, Rosemary, Ed. Larousse Dictionary of Writers. New York: Larousse, 1994

McGovern, Una, Ed. Biographical Dictionary. Edinburgh: Chambers / Harrap Publishers, 2002

Ousby, Ian, Ed. The Cambridge Literature in English. Cambridge: CUP, 1993

Payne, Tom. The A-Z of Great Writers. London: Carlton, 1997

 

(c) November 2010. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.  

Louisa May Alcott

Literature / Writers Datebook: November 29

 

 

American novelist, short story writer, children's author, and poet best known for writing the novel Little Women and its sequels Good Wives, Little Men, and Jo's Boys

 Brief biography Louisa May Alcott (b. Nov. 29, 1832 - d. Mar. 6, 1888, age at death 55).   

Early Years

Louisa May Alcott was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania. She suffered poverty and insecurity in her childhood. When she was only two years old, her father, Bronson Alcott, moved the family to Boston, where he ran a school that failed. Later, they moved again to Concord, Massachusetts. 

The writer and Influences  

Though mainly taught by her father, Louisa May Alcott learned a great deal from her famous neighbours, who included the writers Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Since the family had very little money,she decided to support her family by writing. 

Her first book , a collection of fairytales called Flower Fables, was written when she was 16, published later after six years. When she was 30, she served as a nurse during the American Civil War, and from this experience, she wrote Hospital Sketches, her second book.  .  

Her most famous book Little Women was published when she was 36. Along with its sequel, Good Wives, Little Women tells the story of the March family, a picture of a family full of humour and loving relationships. It is based on her own home life. Jo March, the main character, is a self-portrait, and Jo's three sisters are also based on Alcott's beloved sisters.   

Legacy

Louisa May Alcott strongly felt that women should have voting rights. She became involved in movements that demanded changes in society, changes that carried through in some of her writings. Her legacy as a writer is anchored in her revolutionary approach to children's and young adult literature, her creation of independent female characters, and her pioneering business savvy as a female author.

 

Works by Louisa May Alcott

Flower Fables, 1854

Hospital Sketches, 1863

Moods, 1864

The Chase (originally, A Long Fatal Love Chase, written under the pseudonym A.M. Barnard), 1866 

Little Women, 1868

Good Wives, 1869

An Old-Fashioned Girl, 1870

Little Men, 1871

Eight Cousins, 1875

Jo's Boys, 1886

A Garland for Girls, 1888

Published after her death:

The Inheritance, 1998 

 

Image Credit:

Louisa May Alcott, Woolf. Public Domain

 

Resources:

Cambridge Guide to Literature in English by Ian Ousby (1993)

Larousse Dictionary of Writers, edited by Rosemary Goring (1994)

Macmillan Dictionary of Women's Biography. 3^rd Ed, ed. by Jennifer Uglow (1999) 

 

(c) January 25, 2010. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved. 

Herman Melville

Literature / Writers Datebook: August 1

American novelist, famous for Moby-Dick (or The Whale), and considered one of the most important figures in American literature. 

 Brief biography of Herman Melville (b. Aug. 1 1819 - d. Sept. 28, 1891, age at death 72).   

Early Years

Herman Melville was born in New York City, the son of a wealthy merchant. His father died when he was 13, leaving the family in poverty. He left school to support family until he was 22, when he became a seaman on a whaling ship bound for the Pacific.  He deserted the ship on the Marquesa Islands and lived with the islanders until another ship took him to Tahiti. He eventually landed in Hawaii and enlisted in the US Navy. 

The writer and Influences  

At the age of 25, he left the navy and wrote novels based on his experiences. He soon gained a reputation as an author of adventure stories. At 31, he moved to Massachusetts, where he became a close friend of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Melville had almost completed Moby-Dick when Hawthorne encouraged him to change it from a simple book about whaling to an allegorical and philosophical novel.  

On one hand Moby-Dick is about Captain Ahab's search our of revenge for the fierce white whale, Moby-Dick, and details about whaling and a whaler's life. On another hand it is a story of a man's search for meaning in his life, and a tale of good versus evil.  When Moby-Dick was published, it was not a success. It was only recognised as a masterpiece 30 years after Melville's death.    

Legacy

Herman Melville's legacy is a posthumously rediscovered master whose novel Moby-Dick transformed into a cornerstone of world literature after decades of critical and commercial obscurity. Though Moby-Dick was slammed by critics and largely forgotten when Melville died in 1891, his epic was canonised in the 20th century as a supreme achievement in American symbolism, existential philosophy, and narrative scale. 

Works by Herman Melville

Typee: A Peep at Polyneian Life, 1846

Omoo:  A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas, 1847

Mardi: 1849

Moby-Dick: 1851

The Piazza Tales: 1856

The Confidence-Man: 1857  

Billy Budd, 1924  (Published after Melville died) 

 

Image Credit:

Herman Melville, Public Domain

 

Resources:

Cambridge Guide to Literature in English by Ian Ousby (1993)

Larousse Dictionary of Writers, edited by Rosemary Goring (1994)

Macmillan Dictionary of Women's Biography. 3^rd Ed, ed. by Jennifer Uglow (1999) 

 

(c) August 1, 2010. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved. 

Ernest Hemingway

Literature / Writer's Datebook: July 21

 

 

 

 

Brief biography of American novelist and short story writer Ernest Hemingway, famous for A Farewell to Arms, For Whom The Bell Tolls,  and The Old Man and the Sea.

 

Ernest Hemingway was one of the most influential American writers of the 20^th century. His adventurous life added a ring of truth to his novels and short stories, for example, big game-hunting (Green Hills of Africa). In 1953 he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his famous book The Old Man and the Sea, and the following year he won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Early Life 

 Ernest Miller Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899, in Oak Park, Illinois, the second of six children. At the age of 19 he was badly wounded in Italy while serving as a Red Cross ambulance driver during World War I. After the war he went to Paris, and became part of a group of prominent literary writers and avant garde artists including Gertrude Stein, who called themselves the "Lost Generation". He first gained recognition as a writer with the publication of his short-story collection "In Our Time" when he was 26.

Pursuit of Life and Interest

In the 1920s and 1930s Hemingway spent much time pursuing his interest in hunting and dangerous supports in Africa, Spain, and Florida. During the Spanish Civil War he went to Spain as a reporter.  One of his greatest novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls, is about this war.   

Hemingway also reported on World War II, following America troops as they invaded France and liberated Paris from the Germans. He got married four times, with the first three wives ending in divorce. In a fit of depression, Hemingway shot himself and died on July 2, 1961, at the age of 61.

Hemingway Writing Style

Hemingway's books are famous for their "macho" protagonists and brutal stories. He himself was drawn to adventure and danger and as notorious for his hard-drinking lifestyle. He wrote in short, simple sentences that make his scenes descriptions seem all the more harsh and detached. The influence of his work has continued through the years, not only on American literature but worldwide. His novels have been made into successful films.  

 

Works by Ernest Hemingway

In Our Time, 1925

The Sun Also Rises, 1926

Men without Women, 1927

A Farewell to Arms, 1929

Death in the Afternoon, 1932

The Green Hills of Africa, 1935

To Have and Have Not, 1937

For Whom the Bell Tolls, 1940

Across the River and into the Trees, 1950

The Old Man and the Sea, 1952

A Moveable Feast, 1964 (published after he died)

 

Photo Credit:

Ernest Hemingway.  en.wikipedia.org/public domain 

Resources:

Goring, Rosemary, Editor. Larousse Dictionary of Writers. Larousse, 1994

Payne, Tom. The A-Z of Great Writers. Carlton Books Ltd, 1997

Ousby, Ian. Cambridge Guide to Literature. Cambridge, 1993

 

(c)  July 21, 2010. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.

Saul Bellow

Literature / Writers Datebook: June 10

 

Brief biography of American novelist and teacher Saul Bellow, Nobel Prize for literature in 1976. Considered one of America's finest writers. Famous for The Adventures of Augie March, Herzog and Humboldt's Gift. Considered

 

Early Life

Saul Bellow was born in Lachine, Quebec, Canada on June 10, 1915, the son of immigrant Russian Jews from St. Petersburg. Bellow's father was a businessman, who was not always successful. The young Bellow spent his childhood in Montreal, and in 1924, when he was nine, his father moved the family to the United States, in Chicago.  Bellow, who spoke English, French, Hebrew and Yiddish, grew up, went to school and attended university in Chicago, and later, in Evanston, Illinois.

 

The Writer, Teacher, and Merchant Marine

After graduating at the age of 21, he decided to become a writer, and abandoned his post-graduate studies at Wisconsin University. By this time Bellow had married and needed to earn money. He began working as a teacher and helped compile the literature section of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, as well as writing novels.

During World War II, Bellow joined the merchant marine. He used this experience as the basis for his first novel, Dangling Man, published when Bellow was 29. It is about the thoughts and feelings of a man waiting to be drafted into the army. After the war Bellow returned to his life of teaching and writing. He become an American citizen in 1941.

 

Writing Theme and Criticism

Bellow often writes about people who feel that they do not belong in the world they live in, who feel that they are outsiders and do not fit in to the present environment full of absurdity and chaos as opposed to the intellectually and emotionally nourishing past. For this he was criticized by his detractors as conventional still clinging to the European novels of the 19^th century. Many of his stories are both sad and funny at the same time. Typical of this is his novel Humboldt's Gift, a comic book about death that won him the Pulitzer Prize in 1976.

 

Awards and Distinctions

He has won many awards for his work, including the Nobel Prize for literature in 1976 and the National Medal of Arts in 1998. He became an associate professor at Minnesota University, and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship 1948, after which he traveled to Europe, in Paris and Rome.

He died at the age of 89, in Massachusetts, USA, on April 5, 2005.

 

Works by Saul Bellow

Dangling Man, 1944

The Victim, 1947

Adventures of Augie March, 1953

Seize the Day, 1956

Henderson the Rain King, 1959

Herzog, 1964

Mr Sammler's Planet, 1970

Humboldt's Gift, 1975

The Dean's December, 1982

More Die of Heartbreak, 1987

The Actual, 1997

 

Photo Credit:

Saul Bellow.   Wikipedia Commons / Public Domain. Photo portrait of Bellow from the dust jacket of Herzog (1964).

 

Resources:

Chambers Biographical Dictionary, New Edition, edited by Una McGovern, Chambers Harrap Publishers, 2002

Larousse Dictionary of Writers, edited by Rosemary Goring, Larousse plc, 1994

 

(c) June 2010. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.