Summer and Smoke

First edition
(publ. New Directions)

Summer and Smoke is a two-part, thirteen-scene play by Tennessee Williams, completed in 1948. He began working on the play in 1945 as Chart of Anatomy, derived from his short stories "Oriflamme" and the then-work-in-progress "Yellow Bird".[1] The phrase "summer and smoke" probably comes from the Hart Crane poem "Emblems of Conduct" in the 1926 collection White Buildings. After a disappointing Broadway run in 1948, the play was a hit Off-Broadway in 1952. Williams continued to revise Summer and Smoke in the 1950s, and in 1964 he rewrote the play as The Eccentricities of a Nightingale.[2]

  1. ^ Tennessee Williams, Plays 1937–1955. Mel Gussow and Kenneth Holditch, eds. New York: Library of America, 2000, p. 1032. ISBN 1-883011-86-8
  2. ^ Tennessee Williams, Plays 1957–1980. Mel Gussow and Kenneth Holditch, eds. New York: Library of America, 2000, p. 985. ISBN 1-883011-87-6