Theophilus North (Masterplots II: American Fiction Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Thornton Wilder
- First Published: 1973
- Type of Plot: Social chronicle/fictional memoir
- Time of Work: From June to August, 1926
- Setting: Newport, Rhode Island
- Principal Characters: T. Theophilus North, Dr. James Bosworth, Persis Tennyson, Baron Bodo von Stams, Flora Deland, Henry Simmons, Edweena Wills, Colonel Nicholas Vanwinkle, Amelia Cranston
- Genres: Long fiction
- Subjects: Love or romance
- Locales: Rhode Island
The Novel
Ostensibly a memoir written from the perspective of nearly fifty years later, Theophilus North is the last of Wilder’s works to have been published during his lifetime. It is also, despite a deceptive simplicity, one of the more puzzling items in Wilder’s varied literary canon.
Writing in the first person for the first time since his first published novel, The Cabala (1926), Wilder in Theophilus North creates a narrative persona so close to his own that at times the two voices merge: North, indeed, shares with his creator the accidents...
[The entire page is 3023 words long]
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