A Streetcar Named Desire

About the Book

“i don’t want realism. i want magic!” Blanche DuBois—the insecure, promiscuous, archetypal Southern belle—has lost her ancestral estate. But she hasn’t lost her pretence. Penniless, she comes to stay with her sister and barbaric brother-in-law, Stella and Stanley Kowalski. Contemptuous of their two-room apartment in the working-class neighbourhood of New Orleans, Blanche is met with hostility from Stanley, who attempts everything to unveil her deceptions. What happens as the conflict between them increases? Will Blanche’s fantasies and illusions win over her reality? Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire is a classic work of social realism. Counted among the finest plays of the twentieth century, it has been adapted into multiple art forms including ballet and opera.

About the Author
Thomas Lanier “Tennessee” Williams III was born on 26 March 1911, in Columbus, Mississippi. He enrolled for journalism at the University of Missouri in 1929, and began participating in various writing contests, submitting his stories, essays, and poems. Beauty is the Word (1930) was his first submitted play. It was followed by Hot Milk at Three in the Morning (1932). In 1944, The Glass Menagerie, a five-character memory play, premiered in Chicago. It was an instant hit and went on to become his first successful play. While The Glass Menagerie launched Williams as a successful playwright, A Streetcar Named Desire secured his position as a great one. Written in 1947, the play opened on Broadway in the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on 3 December 1947, and closed on 17 December 1949. Williams’ other works include Summer and Smoke (1948), The Rose Tattoo (1951), Camino Real (1953), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), Orpheus Descending (1957), Garden District (1958), and Sweet Bird of Youth (1959). These plays were performed on Broadway between 1948 and 1959. And later, many of them were made into motion pictures.