Hard Candy: A Book of Stories explained
| Hard Candy: A Book of Stories |
| Author: | Tennessee Williams |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
| Publisher: | New Directions Publishing |
| Release Date: | 1954 |
| Media Type: | Print (hardback) |
| Pages: | 220 |
| Oclc: | 6662774 |
Hard Candy: A Book of Stories is a collection of short stories by American writer Tennessee Williams, which was first published in 1954 by New Directions.[1]
Stories
Those stories published originally in magazines before being collected in Hard Candy are indicated.[2]
- "Three Players of a Summer Game” (The New Yorker, October 24, 1952)
- "Two on a Party”
- "The Resemblance between a Violin Case and a Coffin” (Flair, 1950)
- "Hard Candy"
- "Rubio y Morena” (Partisan Review, December 12, 1948)
- "The Mattress by the Tomato Patch”
- "The Coming of Something to the Widow Holly”
- "The Vine” (Mademoiselle, July 1954)
- "The Mysteries of the Joy Rio”
Critical Assessment
The period in which Williams wrote the stories for Hard Candy were contemporaneous with the staging of A Streetcar Named Desire (1948) with his emergence as “America’s most important playwright.”[3]
The years 1948-1952 were a “golden age” for Williams, both personally and professionally.[4] Literary critic and biographer Gore Vidal termed 1948 Williams’ “annus mirabilis"[5]
Notes and References
- Vannatta, 1988 p. 133: Bibliography: Primary sources
- Williams, 1985 pp. 571-574: Bibliographical Notes
- Vannatta, 1988 p. 51
- Vannatta, 1988 p. 51
- Williams, 1985 pp. 571-574: Bibliographical Notes: Hard Candy “is really a variation of ‘The Mysteries of the Joy Rio.’”
- Vidal, 1985 p. xix And: p. xxv: “[T[he great period, 1945-1952, when all the ideas for the plays were either in his head as stories - or on the stage itself.”</ref>
Literary critic Dennis Vannatta cautions that “although this period produced a bright flowering of his short fiction, not every story written during this time is first-rate.”<ref>Vannatta, 1988 p. 51</ref>
In March 1954 Williams noted in a letter that he was "pulling together a short-long play based on the characters in "Three Players."<ref>Lahr, John. ''Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage'' of the Flesh. New York: W.W. Norton, 2014, p. 284. {{ISBN|978-0-393-02124-0}}
</ref> The play was ''[[Cat on a Hot Tin Roof]].
The 1967 paperback edition, dedicated to Jane and Paul Bowles, notes that the title piece, "Hard Candy," is a later version of "The Mysteries of the Joy Rio," yet both stories are included, despite employing the same theme and the same setting, because the accounts are so different.[5]
Sources
