Brenda Murphy has written what is arguably the most comprehensive study of America's foremost playwright since Michael Paller's Gentlemen Callers: Tennessee Williams, Homosexuality, and Mid-Twentieth-Century Drama (2005). In light of the recent publication of previously unpublished letters, journals, poems, and one-act plays by Williams, as well as scholarship inspired by these texts, Murphy proposes a critical re-evaluation of the playwright's pre-1944 and post-1961 work to illuminate his masterpieces. In so doing, Murphy engages with the ongoing debate in Williams studies about the merit of his work outside a generally agreed-upon acclaimed period, bookended by The Glass Menagerie (1944) and The Night of the Iguana (1961).

Williams became persona non grata on Broadway after 1961, a period when he tried in vain to engage theatregoers with non-realistic drama. While less favourable critics have dismissed Williams's later work, others have praised his late experimental plays. Judging from her cogent observations, Murphy sides with the latter in this debate by championing not only Williams's late venture into avant-garde theatre but also his early commitment to a ‘theatre of social engagement’ (p. 3).

One of Murphy's goals is ‘to consider [Williams’s] better-known plays in the context of his earlier and later work’ (p. 3). In chapter 1, Murphy links Williams's work during his so-called apprentice years with his masterworks of the 1940s and 1950s, identifying consistent themes and motifs. The last chapter deftly analyses the later work, drawing attention to Williams's experimentation with new forms of theatre. She uses the three facets of the phrase ‘gay bohemian artist’ (p. 3) as a controlling trope throughout the book to investigate the evolution of this artist figure in Williams's oeuvre. Her most effective use of this trope is when she discusses, in chapter 6, the various ‘romantic nonconformists’ (p. 101) in Camino Real (1953). By addressing these marginalized characters in conjunction with Esmeralda's incantation, a prayer that reflects Williams's positive view of the fugitive kind, Murphy gives the reader a new appreciation for this much-maligned play.

The strengths of this volume, part of Methuen Drama's Critical Companions series, are too numerous to mention in this short review, but I wish to highlight the following: Murphy's elegant prose and close reading of more than twenty plays, her judicious use of biographical and autobiographical information on the playwright to enrich her study, the inclusion of a useful chronology and an extensive bibliography at the end of the book, and the addition of four new in-depth articles by Williams experts. These insightful articles underscore the fact that the field of Williams studies is diverse, vibrant and dynamic.

Murphy succeeds in reassessing the playwright's earliest and latest plays and showing how they shed significant light on his major plays. Meticulously researched, persuasively argued and finely written, this book is a welcome addition to Williams scholarship and should become essential reading for both general theatre enthusiasts and Williams specialists.