The Caterpillar Dogs and Other Early Stories
short-story-collection · First published 2023
Author guide
Tennessee Williams Books in Order
Tennessee Williams (1911–1983), born Thomas Lanier Williams, was an American dramatist whose poetic realism reshaped twentieth-century theater. His major plays include The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, Summer and Smoke, The Rose Tattoo, Camino Real, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Orpheus Descending, Suddenly Last Summer, Sweet Bird of Youth, and The Night of the Iguana. He also published novels, short fiction, poetry, essays, memoirs, letters, and screenplays, including substantial posthumous collections of previously unpublished work.
dramafictionshort storiespoetryessaysmemoirscreenwriting
Catalog record updated .
Tennessee Williams's Newest Book
Not sure where to begin?
Start with one of these
The Glass Menagerie
The breakthrough memory play that established Williams as a major American dramatist.
A Streetcar Named Desire
His landmark Pulitzer-winning drama and the clearest entry point into his mature theater.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
A major, accessible Pulitzer-winning family drama.
Outside the series
Bibliography by category
Novels (2)
- The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone
novel · 1950
- Moise and the World of Reason
novel · 1975
Nonfiction (1)
- Memoirs
memoir · 1975
Long self-identified as a gay man, America's greatest playwright Williams' candour in his book about his love life, sexual encounters, and drug use was found shocking in and of itself. Here, more than thirty years later, Williams' look…
Short fiction (9)
- Hard Candy: A Book of Stories
short-story-collection · 1954
- Man Brings This Up Road
short-story · 1959
- Three Players of a Summer Game and Other Stories
short-story-collection · 1960
Three players of a summer game. The important thing. One arm. Portrait of a girl in glass. The coming of something to the Widow Holly. Two on a party. The yellow bird. The field of blue children. The malediction. The angel in the alcove.…
- Grand
short-story · 1964
- The Knightly Quest: A Novella and Four Short Stories
novella-and-short-story-collection · 1967
- Eight Mortal Ladies Possessed: A Book of Stories
short-story-collection · 1974
- Collected Stories
short-story-collection · 1985
See https://openlibrary.org/works/OL30278W/Collected_Stories
- The Caterpillar Dogs and Other Early Stories
short-story-collection · 2023
Essays and speeches (1)
- Where I Live: Selected Essays
essay-collection · 1978
Poetry (3)
- In the Winter of Cities
poetry-collection · 1956
- Androgyne, Mon Amour
poetry-collection · 1977
- The Collected Poems of Tennessee Williams
poetry-collection · 2002
"In this edition of The Collected Poems of Tennessee Williams, all of the playwright/poet's previously collected and uncollected published poems, including poems from the plays, have been assembled, accompanied by explanatory notes and…
Plays (48)
- Battle of Angels
play · 1945
- The Glass Menagerie
play · 1945
No play in the modern theatre has so captured the imagination and heart of the American public as Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie. As Williams's first popular success, it launched the brilliant, if somewhat controversial, career,…
- 27 Wagons Full of Cotton and Other One-Act Plays
play-collection · 1946
- You Touched Me!
play · 1947
- A Streetcar Named Desire
play · 1947
'I once went out with a doll who said to me, "I am the glamorous type, I am the glamorous type!" I said, "So what?"' Set against the steamy backdrop of the New Orleans old quarter, this atmospheric tale depicts the conflict between a…
- American Blues: Five Short Plays
play-collection · 1948
- Summer and Smoke
play · 1948
- I Rise in Flame, Cried the Phoenix
play · 1951
- The Rose Tattoo
play · 1951
Larger than life - a fable, a Greek tragedy, a comedy, a melodrama - the Tony Award-winning The Rose Tattoo is a valentine from Tennessee Williams to anyone who has ever been in love. In the midst of her anger and grief over news that her…
- Camino Real
play · 1953
- Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
play · 1955
Members of a neurotic Southern family gather to face the impending death of their patriarch, Big Daddy, and battle over the inheritance of his vast estate.
- Baby Doll: The Script for the Film
screenplay · 1956
- A Perfect Analysis Given by a Parrot
play · 1958
- Orpheus Descending
play · 1959
- Suddenly Last Summer
play · 1958
- Sweet Bird of Youth
play · 1959
A magnificent, atmospheric study of of lost youth and innocence by one of America's most acclaimed playwrights.
- Period of Adjustment
play · 1960
- The Night of the Iguana
play · 1961
Now published for the first time as a trade paperback with a new introduction and the short story on which it was based. Williams wrote: “This is a play about love in its purest terms.” It is also Williams’s robust and persuasive plea for…
- The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore
play · 1964
- The Eccentricities of a Nightingale
play · 1964
- The Mutilated
play · 1967
- The Gnädiges Fräulein
play · 1967
- Kingdom of Earth
play · 1968
- In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel
play · 1969
- The Two-Character Play
play · 1969
- Dragon Country: A Book of Plays
play-collection · 1970
- Small Craft Warnings
play · 1972
- Out Cry
play · 1973
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts presents the David Merrick production, Michael York, in "Out Cry," by Tennessee Williams, with Cara Duff-MacCormick, production lighted and designed by Jo Mileziner, costumes designed by…
- Vieux Carré
play · 1979
Born out of the journals the playwright kept at the time, Tennessee Williams's Vieux Carré is not emotion recollected in tranquility, but emotion re-created with all the pain, compassion, and wry humor of the playwright's own 1938-39…
- A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur
play · 1980
- Steps Must Be Gentle
play · 1980
- Clothes for a Summer Hotel
play · 1981
- It Happened the Day the Sun Rose
play-collection · 1981
- Stopped Rocking and Other Screenplays
screenplay-collection · 1984
- The Remarkable Rooming-House of Mme. Le Monde
play · 1984
- The Red Devil Battery Sign
play · 1988
- Something Cloudy, Something Clear
play · 1995
- The Notebook of Trigorin: A Free Adaptation of Anton Chekhov's The Sea Gull
play · 1997
Tennessee Williams' journey from first reading Chekhov's The Sea Gull to his adaptation of that play as The Notebook of Trigorin mirrored his own creative life. Early on, Williams thought of directing The Sea Gull, and, over the years,…
- Not About Nightingales
play · 1998
- Spring Storm
play · 1999
- Stairs to the Roof
play · 2000
- The Fugitive Kind
screenplay · 2001
- Candles to the Sun
play · 2004
"Never before published, the first full-length play by novice playwright Thomas Lanier Williams, Candles to the Sun opened on Thursday, March 18, 1937 and received rave reviews in the local press. The Mummers, a semi-professional and…
- Mister Paradise and Other One-Act Plays
play-collection · 2005
These are the stairs you got to watch -- Mister Paradise -- The Palooka -- Escape -- Why do you smoke so much, Lily? -- Summer at the lake -- The big game -- The pink bedroom -- The fat man's wife -- Thank you, kind spirit -- The…
- The Traveling Companion and Other Plays
play-collection · 2008
- A House Not Meant to Stand
play · 2011
Christmas 1982: Cornelius and Bella McCorkle of Pascagoula, Mississippi, return home one midnight in a thunderstorm from the Memphis funeral of their older son to a house and a life literally falling apart--daughter Joanie is in an insane…
- The Magic Tower and Other One-Act Plays
play-collection · 2011
- Now the Cats with Jeweled Claws
play-collection · 2016
"This new collection of fantastic, lesser-known one-acts contains some of Williams's most potent, witty and wild late plays written from 1971 to 1982--Upper East Side ladies dine out during the apocalypse in Now the Cats With Jeweled…
Other (4)
- Tennessee Williams's Letters to Donald Windham, 1940–1965
letters · 1976
Frequently asked questions about Tennessee Williams
What was Tennessee Williams’s real name, and where was he born?
Tennessee Williams was born Thomas Lanier Williams III on March 26, 1911, in Columbus, Mississippi.
Source: poets.org (opens in a new tab)
Why was Thomas Lanier Williams called Tennessee Williams?
The name “Tennessee” began as a nickname given by fellow students who noticed his Southern accent. He later adopted it as his professional name.
Source: dos.fl.gov (opens in a new tab)
What influenced Tennessee Williams’s writing?
His family experiences and time in New Orleans strongly shaped his imagination. The work of D. H. Lawrence also had a direct and significant influence on his early career.
Sources: dos.fl.gov (opens in a new tab)tennesseewilliamsstudies.org (opens in a new tab)
What awards did Tennessee Williams win?
He won two Pulitzer Prizes in Drama, for A Streetcar Named Desire in 1948 and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in 1955. He also won a Tony Award for Best Play for The Rose Tattoo.
Sources: pulitzer.org (opens in a new tab)poets.org (opens in a new tab)dos.fl.gov (opens in a new tab)
What is Tennessee Williams’s legacy?
Williams is regarded as one of the most influential American playwrights of the 20th century. His estate continues to support writers, creative-writing scholarships, fellowships, and theater through the University of the South.
Sources: poets.org (opens in a new tab)new.sewanee.edu (opens in a new tab)