Thornton Wilder’s Correspondence with Bob Burns

Abstract This article publishes for the first time five letters that Thornton Wilder sent to Robert “Bob” Wiygul Burns in 1945–46. Wilder met Burns in Miami Beach, Florida, after they had both finished their World War II military service. The two struck up a friendship that stemmed from their conversations about family, literature, and philosophy. In the introduction, Burns’s daughter recounts not only the events surrounding the composition of the letters but also how these documents survived in her family over the years. Of particular interest to literary scholars are letters 2, 3, and 4, which reference The Alcestiad, The Ides of March, and Our Town.