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Thornton Wilder to Marian MacDowell, April 30, 1928. Holograph letter.

Thornton Wilder to Marian MacDowell, April 30, 1928. Holograph letter.
Papers of Marian MacDowell, Manuscript Division,
Library of Congress.
Courtesy of The Wilder Family (26)
Digital ID# mc0026

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Thornton Wilder to Marian MacDowell, April 30, 1928.

In 1926 a young teacher named Thornton Wilder came to The MacDowell Colony to work on his second novel, a story about a priest’s search for meaning in the accidental death of five people when a bridge collapses in Peru. The Bridge of San Luis Rey brought Wilder fame and earned him a Pulitzer Prize in 1928. Long sections of the book were written at The MacDowell Colony. Wilder reminisced about working on the book in this letter to Marian MacDowell from 1928.

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