Drewey Wayne Gunn
More than an updating and expansion of materials, this new edition is so different from the first as to constitute virtually a new book, completely recast so as to bring all information about a particular work by Williams: its often complicated publication history, productions with reviews, and criticism, including dissertations. Separate sections list recordings, paintings, biographies and interviews, manuscripts available at 19 institutions, and translations into 36 languages. Arranged alphabetically throughout, with cross references and three indexes, the bibliography is much easier for both the novice and the experienced scholar to use. The data in the 1980 edition have been retained, but more than a third of the information is new, including primary and secondary publications appearing through early 1991. Over 40 new works by Williams and as many new productions appear, including two foreign films largely unknown to scholars, an opera, and a ballet. Also new are some 24 early works published under the name Thomas Lanier Williams; a number of publications, productions, and ballets from the 1950s; and many more reviews of early plays and films. Premieres of all his full-length plays as well as his first production at college are now accounted for.
