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 "Yellow Bird", the latter still a work-in-progress.[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