ORIFLAMME. Written in January 1944 (based on the 1937 unpublished story, “The Red Part of a Flag”), published in 1974 in Vogue, included in the collection Eight Mortal Ladies Possessed (1974).
THE POET. Published in 1948 in the collection One Arm.
PORTRAIT OF A GIRL IN GLASS. Begun in February 1941 in Key West, finished in June 1943 in Santa Monica, published in 1948 in the collection One Arm. This story is the basis for the play The Glass Menagerie.
A RECLUSE AND HIS GUEST. Published in 1970 in Playboy, not previously collected.
THE RESEMBLANCE BETWEEN A VIOLIN CASE AND A COFFIN. Written in October 1949, published in 1950 in Flair, reprinted in Best American Short Stories of 1951, included in the collection Hard Candy (1954).
RUBIO Y MORENA. Published in 1948 in Partisan Review, reprinted in 1949 in New Directions In Prose and Poetry Number Eleven, included in the collection Hard Candy (1954).
SABBATHA AND SOLITUDE. Written in June 1973, published in 1973 in Playgirl, included in the collection Eight Mortal Ladies Possessed (1974).
SAND. Written in April 1936, not previously published.
SOMETHING ABOUT HIM. PubLISHED in 1946 in Mademoiselle, not previously collected.
SOMETHING BY TOLSTOI. Written 1930/31, not previously published. This story won an honorable mention in the Mahan Contest at the University of Missouri (see comments under “Big Black”). A copy of the typescript was supplied by the University of Missouri Archives.
TEN MINUTE STOP. Written c. 1936, not previously published. A copy of the typescript was supplied by the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin.
TENT WORMS. Written c. 1945 (in the Pieces of my Youth manuscript), published in 1980 in Esquire, not previously collected.
THREE PLAYERS OF A SUMMER GAME. Written in Venice and Rome, summer 1951, revised and finished in April 1952, published in 1952 in The New Yorker, reprinted in Best American Short Stories of 1953, included in the collection Hard Candy (1954). This story is the basis for the play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
TWENTY-SEVEN WAGONS FULL OF COTTON. Written in 1935, published in 1936 in Manuscript magazine, not previously collected. This story is the basis for the one-act play of the same title and is a partial basis for the filmscript Bahy Doll.
TWO ON A PARTY. Begun in London, finished in New Orleans 1951/52, published in 1954 in the collection Hard Candy.
THE VENGEANCE OF NITOCRIS. Published in 1928 in Weird Tales. In his “Foreword” to Sweet Bird of Youth (originally published in The New York Times, Sunday, March 8, 1959), Tennessee Williams writes:
In my first published work, for which I received the big sum of thirty-five dollars, a story published in the July or August issue of Weird Tales in the year 1928, I drew upon a paragraph in the ancient histories of Herodotus to create a story of how the Egyptian queen, Nitocris, invited all of her enemies to a lavish banquet in a subterranean hall on the shores of the Nile, and how, at the height of this banquet, she excused herself from the table and opened sluice gates admitting the waters of the Nile into the locked banquet hall, drowning her unloved guests like so many rats.
I was sixteen when I wrote this story, but already a confirmed writer, having entered upon this vocation at the age of fourteen, and, if you’re well acquainted with my writings since then, I don’t have to tell you that it set the keynote for most of the work that has followed.
THE VINE. Begun in Laguna Beach in 1939, revised and finished in 1944 in Clayton, Missouri, published in 1954 in Mademoiselle, included in the collection Hard Candy (1954). This story won the Benjamin Franklin Magazine Award for Excellence in 1955.
THE YELLOW BIRD. Published in 1947 in Town and Country, included in the collection One Arm (1948). This story is a partial basis for the plays Summer and Smoke and The Eccentricities of a Nightingale.
BY TENNESSEE WILLIAMS
PLAYS
Baby Doll & Tiger Tail
Camino Real
Candles to the Sun
Cat on a Hor Tin Roof
Clothes for a Summer Hotel
Fugitive Kind
The Glass Menagerie
A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur
Mister Paradise and Other One Act Plays
Not About Nightingales
The Notebook of Trigorin
Something Cloudy, Something Clear
Spring Storm
Stairs to the Roof
Stopped Rocking and Other Screen Plays
A Srreetcar Named Desire
Sweet Bird of Youth
27 Wagons Full of Cotton and Other Plays
The Two-Character Play
Vieux Carré
THE THEATRE OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, VOLUME I
Battle of Angels, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Glass Menagerie
THE THEATRE OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, VOLUME II
The Eccentricities of a Nightingale, Summer and Smoke,
The Rose Tattoo, Camino Real
THE THEATRE OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, VOLUME III
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Orpheus Descending, Suddenly Last Summer
THE THEATRE OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, VOLUME IV
Sweet Bird of Youth, Period of Adjustment, The Night of the Iguana
THE THEATRE OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, VOLUME V
The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore, Kingdom of Earth
(The Seven Descents of Myrtle), Small Craft Warnings, The Two-Character Play
THE THEATRE OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, VOLUME VI
27 Wagons Full of Cotton and Other Short Plays
THE THEATRE OE TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, VOLUME VII
In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel and Other Plays
THE THEATRE OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, VOLUME VIII
Vieux Carré, A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur, Clothes for a Summer Hotel, The Red Devil Battery Sign
POETRY
Collected Poems
In the Winter of Cities
PROSE
Collected Stories
Hard Candy and Other Stories
One Arm and Other Stories
Memoirs
The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone
The Selected Letters of Tennessee Williams, Volume I
The Selected Letters of Tennessee Williams, Volume II
Where I Live; Selected Essays
Copyright © 1939, 1945, 1946, 1947, 1948, 1950, 1952, 1953, 1954,
1964, 1966, 1967, 1969, 1971, 1973, 1974, 1977, 1978, 1980, 1982
by Tennessee Williams
Copyright © 1959 by Two Rivers Enterprises Inc.
Copyright © 1985 by the Estate of Tennessee Williams
Copyright © 1985 by New Directions Publishing Corporation
Copyright © 1985 by Gore Vidal
All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a newspaper, magazine, radio, or television review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.
Sincere gratitude goes to Maria St. Just for suggesting and enlisting the participation of Gore Vidal and Andy Warhol in this project.
The introduction by Gore Vidal appeared in a somewhat different form in the New York Review of Books.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the editors and publishers of the following magazines and journals in which many of these stories first appeared: Antaeus, Christopher Street, The Columns, Esquire, Flair, Mademoiselle, Manuscript, ND Fourteen—New Directions in Prose and Poetry, The New Yorker, Partisan Review, Playboy, Playgirl, Story, Town and Country, Vogue and Weird Tales. (Details of the publishing history of individual stories will be found in the “Bibliographical Notes” at the end of this volume.)
Thanks are also due to the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin, and to the University of Missouri Archives (Record Series C:6/20/1, English Department, Literary Prizes and Awards) for permission t
o use manuscript materials in their possession.
A special note of thanks to Andreas Brown and Lyle Leverich for their assistance in dating the stories.
Manufactured in the United States of America
First published clothbound by New Directions in 1985 and as New Directions Paperbook 784 in 1994
Published simultaneously in Canada by Penguin Books Canada Limited
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Williams, Tennessee, 1911-1983
Collected stories.
(A New Directions Book)
I. Title.
PS3545.I5365A6 1985 813’.54 85-10642
ISBN 978-0-8112-1269-4 (alk. paper)
ISBN 978-0-8112-2081-1 (e-book)
New Directions Books are published by James Laughlin
by New Directions Publishing Corporation,
80 Eighth Avenue, New York 10011
SIXTH PRINTING
Tennessee Williams, Collected Stories
(Series: # )
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