Six Plays by Lillian Hellman

Book Description

These six plays span nearly twenty years of theatre and display the range of Lillian Hellman's dramatic gifts. The Children's Hour (1934), her first play, was considered shocking at the time; it concerns the devastating effects of a child's malicious charge of lesbianism against two of her teachers. Days to Come (1936) is about the tragic consequences of strike-breaking in a small Midwestern community. The Little Foxes (1939) and Another Part of the Forest (1946) together constitute a chilling study of the financial and psychological conflicts within the Hubbards, a wealthy and rapacious Southern family. Watch on the Rhine (1941), the story of how fascism affects an American family and the refugees they harbor, won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. The Autumn Garden (1951) is a poignant yet humorous drama set at a summer resort near New Orleans.

Customer Reviews:

Six wonderfully scripted studies of human nature........2005-07-13

I orginally bought this just to read "The Children's Hour"; however, I truly enjoyed reading all six plays. Hellman is able to pull the reader into the scene and even if the reader is not seeing a live performance he or she is able FEEL the energy.

"The Children's Hour" was quite shocking when it was first written. It takes place in a small boarding school run by two women. One of the students claims the teachers are lesbians and the town is immediately up in arms.

"Days to Come" revolves around a small community in which all the factory employees have gone on strick. The people bring in an union organizer and the owner brings in his men to cross the picket line and to settle the strike.

"The Little Foxes" and "Another Part of the Forest" are two plays that focus on a wealthy Southern family. Together they show how money can tear a family apart.

"Watch on the Rhine" involves an American family that takes in European refugees. However, with the rise of fascism and capture of one of its leaders, the family and refugees have to struggle with its effects.

a diverse menagerie.......2005-03-16

Strong collection of plays all seem to contain heavy verbal exchanges, where truth,. lies and anger all converge to form a major epiphany, like the best drama always does. Memorable characters, sad and bitter both, in each piece. The Autumn Garden is the longest and probably the most playful, 4 others: the truest examples of Hellman's cutting, near brutal dialogue, Watch on the Rhine, the most emotional... Her works should be revived more often. They still pack a solid punch generations later.

Timeless Plays by a Talented Master - Must Read.......2005-02-02

It's unclear to me how such wonderful plays could have escaped my reading for this long.

A casual conversation led me to get this book in order to read the emotionally jarring "The Children's Hour." But that ended up only being the icing on the cake. Every one of the plays in this book display Hellman's mastery of dramatic form, story development, and the anti-climax.

She is direct and yet somehow understated. It's a wonder to me that her name is not mentioned more often in the context it deserves, as a great American playwright. I believe those who see her in the shadow of other playwrights should rethink their comparisons. Hellman stands on her own and deserves careful consideration. In any event, I think everone should read these plays and decide for themselves.

Of particular interest to me is the play "Days to Come." On the surface it tells the story of a small town dealing with the pressures of Organized Labor and Organized Crime. But there is a subtext of human turmoil that is executed expertly. The second act is particularly sharp, with great dialogue that challenges you to read between the lines. While the complexity and number of character might make this a tough production for a small independant playhouse, there is much in her writing to be admired.

I'm glad I took the opportunity to read what I believe to be gems in the rough. I hope more people will do the same.

Rediscovering a Playwright.......2000-04-10

At present, it seems the Lillian Hellman's life has eclipsed her career as a playwright. Her tumultuous affair with mystery writer Dashiell Hammett and her refusal to testify before the House Un-American Affairs Committee are widely-known. Her memoir of a humanitiarian errard during World War II (filmed as the movie "Julia") spawned a great debate on the trustworthiness of her memory.

Yet we hear much less about her plays, six of which are collected in this volume. Perhaps the best known are "The Little Foxes" (in which Tallulah Bankhead starred on Broadway, with Bette Davis taking over the lead in the 1941 movie) and "The Children's Hour" (made into a 1961 film starring Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine). "The Little Foxes" and its prequel "Another Part of the Forest" trace the financial intrigues and infighting of an Alabama family at the turn of the century. Their struggles reflect the social issues facing the post-bellum South; more importantly their scheming and bask-stabbing are great fun. "The Children's Hour" shocked audiences with its frank portrayal (for 1934) of allegations of lesbianism in a girls' boarding school. (In fact, the 1936 film of the play, "These Three" substituted a heterosexual scandal.) Yet Hellman's depiction of the effects of gossip (and what we would today term "homosexual panic') still has the ring of authenticity.

A new discovery for me was the play "Watch on the Rhine," first produced in 1941. The standard description of this play as a portrayal of the effects of fascism on an American family, though true enough, may give a false impression. It's not a preachy play, but almost a comedy of manners, pitting some quaint Europeans against a "normal" American family. Hellman's craft as a playwright is evident in the ways that comedy is broken up against the realities of the current political situation. "Days to Come" also shows the effect of a political crisis (in this case, a labor strike) on a well-to-do family; this play is perhaps less successful as a political work and more successful as a portrayal of a community in crisis and the dangers that come when outsiders are brought in to settle affairs.

I was charmingly surprised by "The Autumn Garden," a 1951 play set at Gulf Coast boarding house. As summer turns to autumn and the guests depart, characters are brought face to face with the illusions of the past and forced to see things as they are.

Customer Reviews:

An Intricate Tale of Lies and Tragic Fate.......2007-02-22

"The Children's Hour" is an excellent play and very poignantly demonstrates how one simple little lie can escalate into something much more severe. I highly recommend this play to any production company which is seeking to put on a play with timeless themes that will captivate the audience. From the second you meet the characters, you identify with them, either personally or because you have meet people like these characters in your own life. The play echoes the real-life scenario of how things spiral out of control, and how sometimes we are too late to fix the damage that has been done. All in all, "The Children's Hour," though not appropriate for younger audiences, is an excellent example of the quintessential themes of theatrical drama.

A play that will never get old..........2007-02-21

Lillian Hellman's play is as good as new.

Treating subjects as old as time, if read or perfomed smartly, it can be a huge success.

Better than the film versions, I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in issues like lies, treason and power. Specially power: the part that gives it all the sense.

Lesbianism isn't a principal factor of the play, so I wouldn't define it as the important part of it all.

A great read, a great play.

Stupid book.......2005-04-25

and mostly stupid dialogue!

people do not then or now deal that way with people,

nor do they not have any idea why people might take kids out of school, at that time after ww2.

example "why must I not marry..." "how could a girl..."

"Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness Against Thy Neighbor".......2004-06-13

Lillian Hellman's magnificent, heart-wrenching, ground breaking and beautiful 1934 play takes the aforementioned commandment and creates a stunning cautionary tale that is not for the weak of heart. The perniciousness of lying and the often tragic consequences therein form the spine of this, Hellman's first major success on the Broadway stage.

Concerning a scandal at a private girl's school, Hellman bravely dramatizes the scars and cycles of abuse which result not only from lying but also from ignorance and cowardice. As I prepare this script for production in the fall of 2004, I find its themes timeless and as hard hitting as any contemporary work.

In Mary Tilford, Hellman has created one of the American Theatre's great villians. She serves as the literary model for "Rhoda" in THE BAD SEED as well as "Abigail" in THE CRUCIBLE. She is the embodiment of souless evil, intent on destroying all around her in order to advance her own status. She is the type of character that can truly, to quote RICHARD III, "Smile and murder whilst I smile". As my cast staged a rough read through, the hisses and rage she inspires is frightening.

Poetic without being obscure or pretentious, the dialouge is crisp and direct. Hellman's characters are three-dimensional and her pacing and story-telling is impeccable. I hope our production will do this great play justice.

As for any potential readers of this play: don't hestitate. Add this to you theatre library immediately.

Delightfully infuriating........2002-12-04

I recently saw a production of this at a local high school. It is one of the most dramatic, engaging, and infuriating plays I have ever seen. If you cant stand to watch supreme injustice, this play is not for you. The accuser of Wright and Dobie has to be the one of the most despichable characters ever devised. all of the characters, from Wright and Dobie down to the Delivery Boy, are engaging and realistic. this is a play that shows perfectly the serious harm that can be caused by "little white lies", and how prejudice effects everyone, even if they arent a member of the victim group. An enlightening, depressing, beautiful play.

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Early Nora Ephron
Imaginary Friends review
Imaginary Friends
Better when seeing it...

Imaginary Friends
Nora Ephron
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1400034221
Release Date: 2003-03-18

Book Description

Although Lillian Hellman and Mary McCarthy probably only met once in their lives, their names will be linked forever in the history of American literary feuds: they were legendary enemies, especially after McCarthy famously announced to the world that every word Hellman wrote was a lie, “including ‘and’ and ‘the.’” The public battle, and the legal squabbling, that ensued ended, unsatisfactorily for all, with Hellman’s death.

In Imaginary Friends, Nora Ephron brilliantly and hilariously resuscitates these two bigger-than-life women to give them a post-mortem second act, and the chance to really air their differences.

Customer Reviews:

Early Nora Ephron.......2007-03-28

i love anything written from Nora Ephron's point of view and this book provides some clues to how she got started. It is fun!

Imaginary Friends review.......2007-01-04

This book is disappointing since it has no real message except that women fight and never forget. So, it is a very negative message that is projected.

Imaginary Friends.......2007-01-04

I didn't care for this book at all. I liked her other books but was disappointed in this one. Mary Pichette

Better when seeing it..........2003-04-13

You just don't get the feel of this extraordinary, unusual and unique play of Mary McCarthy and Lillian Hellman - two rival authors during the communist scare - from reading it. I was given the pleasure of seeing this incredible play starring Cherry Jones and Swoozie Kurts in its Broadway run. When the two authors meet in the afterlife, they tell their audience about their lives, beginning with their cleverly told childhoods and slowly moving forward to McCarthy's accusation of being a Communist and ending with Hellman's death before the trial was set by Hellman and McCarthy to discuss McCarthy's lies about Hellman's so-called memoirs. Still clever and still stunning, Ephron's play is an enjoyable read for McCarthy (THE GROUP) and Hellman (THE CHILDREN'S HOUR) fans.

An Unfinished Woman: A Memoir (Back Bay Books)

Average customer rating:

Illusions Can Be Real
...and an unwritten autobiography
Sheýs been damned, but itýs still a damn fine book
A crisp, dynamic, theatrical, literary memoir.
I loved this book!

An Unfinished Woman: A Memoir (Back Bay Books)
Lillian Hellman , and Wendy Wasserstein
Manufacturer: Back Bay Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0316352853

Book Description

Hellman unleashed her peerless wit and candor on the subject she knew best: herself. An Unfinished Woman is a rich, surprising, emotionally charged portrait of a bygone world, and of an independent-minded woman coming into her own.

Customer Reviews:

Illusions Can Be Real.......2006-04-22

Winner of the National Book Award for best autobiography, An Unfinished Woman candidly chronicles the life of playwright Lillian Hellman, America's leading female dramatist.

The majority of this memoir emphasizes Hellman's unique relationship with mystery writer, Dashiell Hammett. She also reflects on her housekeeper, Helen, who was a close friend, as well as her relationship with writer-humorist, Dorothy Parker. Hellman additionally tells us of her trials and tribulations with writers like Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, Nathaniel West, and many others. Add to the mix her travels to Russia (twice) and her involvement in the Spanish Civil War --along with her `Hollywood' stories centered around Samuel Goldwyn and William Wyler -- and we get a delightful, lively, hard-nosed look back to an era when writers seemed to be the embodiment of intellectualism, style, and good sense.

Throughout the memoir, Hellman comes across as having an iron-wit and a volatile temper. Her no-nonsense vitality and her passion for moral equity frequently conflicts with those around her. Hellman is most illuminating, though, when she allows us to see her vulnerability. Upon returning to Moscow after twenty-two years, she cries before she even gets off the plane. She writes, "I knew that I had taken a whole period of my life and thrown it somewhere, always intending to call for it again, but now that it came time to call, I couldn't remember where I had left it. Did other people do this, drop the past in a used car lot and leave for so long that one couldn't even remember the name of the road?"

Possibly the best piece in the entire memoir is the chapter devoted to Dashiell Hammett, author of The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man. Her on-again, off-again relationship with Hammett over thirty years reveals a fascinating homage to her "closest, most beloved friend." We are presented with the portrait of a man who was both complex and simple, and a relationship that was both tumultuous and inspiring. Several college text books carry this particular chapter as an example of prime autobiographical writing, and it's easy to see why. Hellman's trademark craftsmanship sculpts mishmash-memories into a compact, flowing character study of a remarkably interesting man.

Although Hellman omits significant aspects of her life in An Unfinished Woman, her persecution during the McCarthy era can be found in Scoundrel Time, while details about her numerous plays can be found in Pentimento.

Controversy still surrounds the accuracy of Lillian Hellman's memoirs (did she really fabricate autobiographical stories such as 'Julia'? -- included in Pentimento), yet the passages contained in an An Unfinished Woman are nevertheless dynamic and poignant. Hellman writes about issues that seem to obscure mere fact, and the "truth" she offers has a human commonality which goes beyond the boundaries of simple invention. It's important for those who fervently criticize her to keep in mind Hellman repeatedly tells us that she doesn't trust her memory, and her comments about reviewing one's life -- about the twists and turns of remembrance -- remain the underlying theme in all of her memoirs.

...and an unwritten autobiography.......2006-04-13

Suppose you get sick as a dog for a few days. Nobody knows what's ailing you. So, you buy 25 bananas and scarf them all down. When asked, you say, "Oh, bananas are creamy delicious and they go down smooth as velvet." Kind of poetic, but why did you eat them ? Did you get cured ? Yeah, well, the first book of Lillian Hellman's three volume autobiography, AN UNFINISHED WOMAN, bears a close resemblance to this little scenario. It was on the best seller list for months, we are told. It's certainly well-written, I won't deny that. But does it really tell you much about Lillian Hellman ? That's another story.

Lillian Hellman came from a German-American background, growing up in both New Orleans and New York. Did she have any Jewish connection ? The book does not tell you. After dropping out of colleges, she got married. She stayed with the guy for seven years, but we learn zilch about him, nor about why she chose him then dropped him. Later, she became famous for writing a number of plays that were highly successful on Broadway. She became a nationally known author. Is there even a single word about how, why, where and when she wrote any of these plays ? No, nothing. In fact, if I hadn't heard of Lillian Hellman over many years, I would have no clue as to why reading this autobiography would be interesting. We learn of her close relationship to two black women, both servants in her home. This reflects the civil rights movement and political trends of the 1960s when she wrote the memoir. I am not sure they played such a central role in her life. She also talks a lot about Dorothy Parker and Dashiell Hammett, with the latter of whom she had a 30-year affair. (She had affairs with a number of other people, but they are not mentioned.) Hellman became a political activist early on and her heart went out to the left. She visited Spain during the Civil War and Russia several times. We get almost nothing of her political convictions; the book is apolitical. She finds the time, though, to show how she didn't have any interest in interviewing Stalin or in travelling with the Red Army. Did she have deep political commitments ? Was she a Communist sympathizer ? Other people say she was, but her beliefs play no role in this strange autobiography. What we get are very impressionistic, humorous, and self-centered portraits of Spain and Russia. Hellman defied the House Un-American Activities Committee but did not go to jail. Perhaps she was blacklisted afterwards, but the book does not tell us. On top of all this, she rarely introduces the people whose names she drops. There is no historical background to anyone and no information on how she knew many of the people either. I fear that this volume will, like O. Henry's stories, become so `period-specific' in future that the generations to come will not understand much due to lack of familiarity with the times, the people, and the issues. If little vignettes about famous people turn you on, you might like AN UNFINISHED WOMAN. To know Lillian Hellman, you'd better read something else.

Sheýs been damned, but itýs still a damn fine book.......2003-09-15

Turns out much of what Lillian Hellman wrote in Pentimento was stolen from another person's life, but still, An Unfinished Woman, for which she won the National Book Award in 1969 (for autobiography) is quite a coup. Political activist, critic, and playwrite, Hellman cut a wide swath thru literary circles during her heyday in the 40s, 50s and 60s. This introspective collection of her journal entries and memories shines with her acerbic brilliance. Her circle of `friends' included just about all the famous people of her era: Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Dorothy Parker, Faulkner, and of course Dashiell Hammett, her lover, friend, and confidant. This is a personal account of a life lived as if there were no tomorrow, a nearly romantic rendering of the flavor of a special era in this country, and the documentation of feminine empowerment before the word had even been invented.

A crisp, dynamic, theatrical, literary memoir........2001-08-28

A life where no living is done is a life not worth living. Like O'Neil, Shaw, Williams and Isben, Lillian Hellman (1905-1984, scriptwriter, playwrite, social and political activist and critic) wrote some of the most enduring and thought-provoking drama for the theatre in the 20th century, and the above 'proverb' could very easily have been her epitaph. An Unfinished Woman (Winner of the 1969 National Book Award for biography/Autobiography), the first memoir in her autobiographical trilogy (the two others being Pentimento: A Book of Portraits and Scoundrel Time), showcases a woman who had a 'steel rod' for a spine, a woman of stark liberty who would not compromise her beliefs nor truckle in the presence of those political, military and literary higher-uppers (Hemmingway is a case-in-point) whom she encountered who expected a cowering reaction due to their 'clout.' But that was something she never offered, for as Lillian Hellman said of herself when asked the question, "What are you made of, Lily?" Her cool response was, "Pickling spice and nothing nice." This 'confession' of glued-together memories and eloquent journal entries shimmers with quiet, concentrated reflection and introspection. Each chapter gleams and flashes like a beacon, slowly proffering insights into not simply a remarkable life but a frozen portrait of a bygone era - a period of class, dignity, wisdom, self-learning, an endless stream of wonderful things that are presently no more. She hobnobbed with the best and brightest, luminaries like: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemmingway, William Faulkner, Dorothy Parker, John Hersey, Averell Harriman, and of course, above them all, her truelove and literary confidant, Dashiell Hammett. As a globe-trotting cultural attache' to Russia, France, Germany, and other European lands, she lived and saw intrigue with those of her like mind. She was on the front lines (or very close to them) during World War II. She witnessed bombed out villages and destroyed lives, all the emotional and physical calamities that the horrors of war can funnel forth, broadcasting them for all to hear and imbibe. She participated (with some trepidation) in the PEN (Poets, Playwrites, Essayists and Editors and Novelists) Center Conference, conversing with intellectuals on the pressing issues of the time, but her reluctance was most unequivocal, for intellectual chitchat can, and for her, did quickly evolve into a bombastic mess on hyperbolic, pretentious proportions. She saw B.S., and she saw truth, not hesitating in the least to speak her mind or to write about it. From her reminiscences of her New Orleans girlhood with her beloved caretaker Sophronia, to her shuffling to New York, to her failed marriage and her father's infidelity, Hellman's life only crescendos. With corrosive verve, 'salty' wit and profound insight, Lillian Hellman lets the past truly come alive. In the end, she showed one and all that she was an 'empowered' woman before many thought that could ever be possible.

I loved this book!.......2001-05-24

Lillian Hellman is one of the most important American women writers and this, her memoir, is a literary feast--witty, poignant, brash, and cynical; but as Hellman once wrote, "Cynicism is an unpleasant way of saying the truth." I love her plays and I loved this book!--Diana Dell, compiler, Memorable Quotations: American Women Writers of the Past.

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A Memoir Should Be, Well, Somewhat True
wonderful, flowing narrative on a life fully lived
Proceed with extreme caution
a worthwhile journey thru life
The mystery of 'Julia'

Pentimento (Back Bay Books)
Lillian Hellman
Manufacturer: Back Bay Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0316352888

Book Description

Pentimento, the second of Hellmans three autobiographical works to be reissued by Back Bay, is a memoir in the form of a series of biographical portraits of women and men who, wittingly or unwittingly, influenced Hellmans own development as a woman and as a writer. One of the portraits served as the basis of the Academy Awardwinning film Julia.

Customer Reviews:

A Memoir Should Be, Well, Somewhat True.......2006-07-02

Lillian Hellman was a fascinating woman but it has been well-established that most of her anectodal vignettes are complete fabrications. Not only"Julia", but also the story about her cousin Beth and "Turtle". The writing is great but is diminished when you read this work as it is, mainly fiction. Then, the actual style is simply bad fiction writing. A pity, such a talented woman had to write these sad fictionalizations in the service of her own neuroses.

wonderful, flowing narrative on a life fully lived.......2005-07-05

I do not have the knowledge or tools to judge whether Hellman has written the truth here. However, what I do know is that it is splendidly written in a quirky style, which I studied when younger, and the stories are full of psychological depth and personal reflection. While I find her plays and scripts somewhat shallow with easy-to-label characters, I admit that I liked this book as a fully realized work of art.

While I do think it matters if she consciously fictionalized her life, whatever the facts this is a good read. I will leave it to scholars and critics to hash out the debate.

There are many memorable scenes that live in my mind: her floating in a storm and remembering an incident of killing a snapping turtle, with reminiscences of Hammett as her great love. The scene wanders into a rumination of death and loss, which I thought was real literature. Of course, there is the story of Julia, but there are many other notable scenes, like Hemingway competing with Hammett over his sppon-bending abilities. It is also a window into the past that is vividly rendered.

Warmly recommended.

Proceed with extreme caution.......2005-04-26

There was no "Julia." Hellman helped herself to Muriel Gardiner's life story. ALL of Hellman's memoirs must be read with extreme caution -- her "inaccuracies" go well beyond what is normally expected in any autobiography. (And I also think they've been overrated as literature.)

a worthwhile journey thru life.......2005-03-16

Moving collection of real life stories that make you appreciate Hellman's plays. A must read for anyone interested in her relationship with Dashielle Hammett, who penned some of the, if not, Thee best crime novels in American literature. Read his works first, then read this, then read Hellman's plays. You'll feel as though you've spent time with them over a life. (Lillian has 2 further books of memoirs to complete her trilogy.) Her and Dashielle were 2 of the clearest examples of the cliched hard drinking writer of the 20th century.

The mystery of 'Julia'.......2004-09-27

Pentimento is a fine example, not only of Hellman's writing, but of her imaginative style. The story 'Julia' stands out in this collection because of its basis in reality.
The character of Julia is based, at least partly, on the adventures of the New York psychiatrist, Muriel Gardiner. Like the fictitious Julia, Gardiner studied in pre-war Vienna where she became involved with an anti-Nazi group. Hellman, who also lived for a time in New York, heard bits and pieces of Gardiner's story. Though Gardiner did not lose a leg and obviously survived, her story piqued Hellman's imagination. Hellman's portrait of Julia does not exactly parallel the life of Muriel Gardiner but it was sufficiently close, especially the Vienna section, for some critics to accuse Hellman of purloining Dr Gardiner's story.
Dr Gardiner produced her own memoir in 1983, a book titled 'Code Name "Mary" '. Though she had an exciting time in Vienna, her story is not nearly as fascinating as Hellman's 'Julia'. The ending is especially poignant and avoids the happy ending that brought Dr. Gardiner's book to a close.

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Watch on the Rhine.
Lillian Hellman
Manufacturer: Dramatist's Play Service
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0822212234

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A Tremendous Story of Familial Greed
The Little Foxes

The Little Foxes.
Lillian Hellman
Manufacturer: Dramatists Play Service Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0822206773

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A Tremendous Story of Familial Greed.......2002-11-18

"The Little Foxes" by Lillian Hellman is a brilliant display of a family driven to disaster by overwhelming greed and desire. Regina, Ben, and Oscar Hubbard are siblings who work together, forsaking all others, to obtain for themselves money and power. These three "foxes" attempt to form a partnership with Mr. Marshall, a business man from Chicago, which would help to bring the northern cotton factories down to the south. Originally, it is agreed that the three will split the profit evenly, but Regina grows greedy when she realizes that there is a possibility for her to get more. She deceives her brothers, claiming that her husband Horace has failed to commit to the plan because he desires a larger percentage of the profit. But when the ailing Horace is brought home by his daughter Alexandra, he learns of the plans of his deceptive wife. He decides to take no part in this plan saying, "I'll do no more harm now. I've done enough. I'll die my own way. I'll do it without making the world any worse. I leave that to you." Once again, the evil within the Hubbard family strikes when Horace's money is stolen and invested without his knowing. Instead of growing angry, Horace forms a perfect reasoning for the situation, one in which all the good left in the family will benefit, and all the evil will suffer. But despite Horace's belief that he had tied his wife's hands this time, she still reigns the victor once again in the end.

Throughout the play, Hellman utilizes the development of one character in particular to help parallel the realization of the evil and greed within the family. Horace and Regina's daughter, Alexandra, is perhaps the only innocent family member left in the Hubbard clan. She innocently believes that her trip to retrieve her father from a northern hospital is simply to bring him home and never considers her mother's selfish motives. The "foxes" even consider utilizing Alexandra as a tool in their sick and twisted plans by having her marry her cousin Leo; through this, they could keep the money in the family. But as the play continues, the readers begin to realize that Alexandra will not be duped into following the horrible footprints that her family has left throughout the South. Instead, the readers realize her revolt with the final words of the play, "Are you afraid, Mama?" This quote alone foreshadows Alexandra's breaking away from the family to form a life of truth and happiness of her own. Hellman develops Alexandra in this way to show the possibility of a little sunlight in such a rainy and horrible lifestyle.

Overall, Hellman's play is a tremendous success in developing a set of characters who falsely show love to each other in order to help obtain riches and powers within each of their own lives. This brilliant show of intense familial greed illustrates how such selfish desires can lead to the breakdown of not only a family, but each member within it.

The Little Foxes.......2001-01-20

The Little Foxes written by Lillian Hellman is an excellant read. Hellman's play shows the evils and innocence of the south that plauged it at the turn of the century. Hellman divides the characters of her book into the evil and innocent. The innocent not being able to stop the evil and only standing by and watching it happen. The Little Foxes shows that people brought up in bad times, surroundings and society can overcome these ills or fall prey to them. The Little Foxes is an excellant and captivating read with the good, the bad and the ugly of society. I liked The Little Foxes because it is a dramatic read with lively and spirited characters who keep you turning the pages.

Lillian Hellman: A Life with Foxes and Scoundrels

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The Good Girl
New insights into the controversies surrounding Hellman's life
A Life with Foxes and Scoundrels, indeed!
An exquisite tour de force that all Hellman fans will enjoy!
Fascinating reading about a fascinating if flawed icon

Lillian Hellman: A Life with Foxes and Scoundrels
Deborah Martinson
Manufacturer: Counterpoint
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Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1582433151

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The first biography of Lillian Hellman-the notorious literary star of Broadway and Hollywood-written with the full cooperation of her executors and her most intimate circle

Few literary celebrities have lived with more abandon and under a brighter spotlight than Lillian Hellman. Yet even fewer have been doubted as absolutely as Hellman, famously denounced by rival Mary McCarthy as a writer for whom "every word was a lie, including 'and' and 'the.'" The details of Hellman's life have been hotly contested for decades. She was the author of such Broadway hits as The Children's Hour and The Little Foxes; a Hollywood screenplay writer until she was blacklisted; a writer of best-selling memoirs such as An Unfinished Woman and Pentimento; and the volatile companion of writer Dashiell Hammett, foreign service officer John Melby, and a myriad of other high-profile men. Hellman refused to cooperate with biographers-most notably William Wright-and, up until her death, ordered those close to her to do the same.

Now, in this compelling biography Deborah Martinson moves beyond the myths that drift around Hellman and finds the sassy, outrageous woman committed to writing, to politics, and to having her say. Martinson's exhaustive research-through interviews, archives, and recently declassified CIA files-and her unprecedented access to Hellman's confidantes paints the most complete and surprisingly admiring portrait of Hellman that we've ever had.

Customer Reviews:

The Good Girl.......2006-06-11

After wading through the seas of calumny that have swamped all previous biographies of Lillian Hellman, it is refreshing to dig through Debroah Martinson's ably researched 2005 book and find that, in her opinion, Lillian Hellman never did anything wrong, but on the other hand eventually one tires a bit of 359 pages worth of cheerleading.

I wondered how Dr. Martinson was planning to deal with the "Julia" controversy, as from multiple sources Hellman was assailed by accusers who basically said she was a liar and that either there was no Julia or that Hellman never met her if she existed at all. Martinson has a disarming defense. How do we know that there wasn't really a Julia? After all, Lillian Hellman knew plenty of people back in the 1930s. I have to agree partially with this one, although it is strange that she never gave any more details about the elusive "Julia" even after people began pooh-poohing her honesty. She was certainly backed into a corner at the end, wasn't she, like a rat in the trap of her own integrity.

The best part of the book details Hellman's earliest Hollywood years with Sam Goldwyn and William Wyler. Sam Jaffe said, "Goldwyn had class with a capital K." It's interesting to note that Hellman was unable to collaborate with Hemingway on the narration to Joris Ivens' THE SPANISH EARTH because she was laid up due to complications from an abortion. Other commentators have been sure that Hellman wrote parts of it, but Dr. Martinson's research proves them 100 percent wrong. It would be great to have published versions of all the Hammett novels he began and which Martinson mentions here, even if each of them amounted only to a chapter or so, and it would be also great to read the screenplay Hellman wrote for Arthur Penn's THE CHASE (1966) before Horton Foote revised it to make it more linear.

New insights into the controversies surrounding Hellman's life.......2006-04-20

LILLIAN HELLMAN: A LIFE WITH FOXES AND SCOUNDRELS provides new insights into the many controversies which have surrounded her life, but it's even more special because it's the first to write about Hellman with full cooperation of Hellman's literary executors and others who tell the truth about the robust woman's life. Hellman's sharp wit and comments often made for a radical approach to the stage: her affairs with high profile men and her volatile professional and personal relationships generated many myths and inconsistent images about her life. Fans of Hellman will relish a biography which brings reality back into the picture --from the mouths and memories of those who knew her best.

A Life with Foxes and Scoundrels, indeed!.......2006-01-20

Dr. Martinson renders an eloquent and fascinating portrait of the always intriguing, if not nearly as infamous, Lillian Hellman. Writer, dramatist, activist, lover, Hellman emerges as a prolific and unabashed spokeswoman of her time - dedicating her life to the arts and advocating American as well as global civil liberties during McCarthy's reign of House Committee hearings. Martinson curates a tremendous collection of research into a sophisticated and thoughtful read that is as playful as it is thorough and scintillating. In Martinson's resonant style, we see the ash at the tip of Hellman's cigarette as she directs a play with one hand, ruefully raising a toast with the other. Regardless of circumstance or mood, Hellman's biting quips are never far behind. Martinson is masterful in offering her craft to the subject and scope of this massive project, revealing Hellman's tenderness and passions in ways that simultaneously inform and endear the reader - not only to Hellman and her sometimes brash eccentricities, but to Martinson's literary gifts as well - and they are many. I raise a toast to A Life of Foxes and Scoundrels. Cheers

An exquisite tour de force that all Hellman fans will enjoy!.......2006-01-01

In a project where five million puzzle pieces, each differing in significance and subjectivity, can be assembled in an infinite amount of ways, Martinson has done so with a rhythm and candor that, I believe, reflects Hellman's colorful and fluid life. Each section of Martinson's book - in some cases, each paragraph - carefully constructs a masonry of Hellman's life, only to crumble upon itself and build anew, illustrating Hellman's own complexity and unwillingness (inability?) to be understood and encapsulated completely. Martinson's skillful rhythmic pacing of Lillian's life accurately conjures the Ouroboros, in which Lillian, in an attempt to discover who she is, must first absorb and understand her past in order to create an authentic future (although Lillian herself might scoff at such a notion!).

Fascinating reading about a fascinating if flawed icon.......2005-12-22

This riveting new biography of Lillian Hellman benefits greatly from the author's access to previously unavailable documents and the candid recollections any number of Ms. Hellman's closest acquaintances. Professor Martinson ably captures Hellman's difficult, larger-than-life personality, and her equally large theatrical, literary, and political legacies to present a rounded portrait of an amazing life and career - one marked by achievement and controversy, and by innumerable affairs, including Hellman's legendary, multi-decade pairing with the writer, Dashiel Hammett of Thin Man fame.
In all, Ms. Martinson has delivered a first-rate biography and cultural history - no small achievement.

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Pentimento (Back Bay Books)
Estate of Lillian Hellman
Manufacturer: Back Bay Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: B000KJTOP8

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WHO is the scoundrel here?
'Truth makes you a traitor... in a time of scoundrels'
a very personal view of a difficult time
An artful yet compendious, vitriolic written declaration.
Required Reading for the Art of Memoir & McCarthy Era

Scoundrel Time
Lillian Hellman
Manufacturer: Back Bay Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0316352942

Book Description

In 1952, Hellman joined the ranks of intellectuals and artists called before Congress to testify about political subversion. Terrified yet defiant, Hellman refused to incriminate herself or others, and managed to avoid trial. Nonetheless the experience brought devastating controversy and loss. First published in 1972, her retelling of the time features a remarkable cast of characters, including her lover, novelist Dashiell Hammett, a slew of famous friends and colleagues, and a pack of scoundrelsruthless, ambitious politicians and the people who complied with their demands.

Customer Reviews:

WHO is the scoundrel here?.......2006-05-29

Intellectual children, still fresh from their nurseries,
sip this revolting woman's non-stop deceit. Her utter
silence about her lover Otto Katz's torture and execution back
in communist Czechoslovakia, and her totally bogus JULIA say
it all. When she was not suing someone, she was confabulating
her own autobiography along the way. Funny, her career begins
as Hammett's fades. A HUAC plot, no doubt.

'Truth makes you a traitor... in a time of scoundrels'.......2005-09-12

`Scoundrel Time' is a harrowing, highly personal account of the events surrounding Lillian Hellman's appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee, HUAC, in 1952. It was, to put it mildly, a tricky situation. Although Hellman did not `cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions,' the damage to her life and career were extensive. Even though she was not a friendly witness the Committee didn't cite her for contempt. That did nothing to save her from being blacklisted, however. Beyond a revealing look at a life disrupted by a government that felt, as Garry Wills puts it in his extended introduction, `Hollywood must be censored politically if nation was to be protected ideologically,' Hellman details the post-hearing shake-out. Without a chance to work at home, and with work abroad hindered by an ever-suspicious government, Hellman would eventually lose her home, a number of fair-weather friends, while we all lost a decade's worth of plays and screenplays.

It's helpful to read Wills' introduction prior to Hellman's book. Wills writes that Hellman's scheduled appearance before the Committee `was especially dangerous because Miss Hellman was as little qualified to understand the Committee as it was to grasp her code of honor.' Wills supplies the context while Hellman concentrates on the emotions of someone undergoing a witch hunters' scrutiny. Wills rightly discerns an inability on Hellman's part to understand that Richard Nixon, Joe McCarthy, and others of their ilk were sincere Cold Warriors. All things considered Hellman displays a rather surprising dearth of rancor towards her persecutors, but she doesn't hide the fact that she considers them unscrupulous opportunists.

`Scoundrel Time' was published in 1976, shortly after the resignation of one of Hellman's persecutors, Richard Nixon. To paraphrase Jimmy Breslin, the good guys finally won and it must have given an odd sense of satisfaction to those who lives were disrupted by his rise to power. Hellman is a flawed and vulnerable character in this memoir, and all the more human for it.

a very personal view of a difficult time.......2004-06-23

Lillian Hellman was a decent person who was caught in a terrible cross wind and ruined. From a charmed life as a screenwriter, she fell to the bottom more quickly than she could have imagined possible. I found this to be the least successful of her series of memoires, in which she re-made herself and re-entered the spotlight as a good if not truly distingusihed writer. However, the topic is more focused than the other volumes, in particular focusing on the travials of her friend, Dashell Hammett. This is very moving. In fact, I found the best part of the book was the introduction by Garry WIlls, who is a truly first-rate political writer. His depiction of the time, made more vivid by his self-identification as a conservation, is chilling and comic at the same time - he recalls how Ayn RAND said that any film with Russians even smiling was propaganda and hence punishable by law!

Recommended, but there are better and far more comprehensive histories of the period.

An artful yet compendious, vitriolic written declaration........2001-09-11

Desensitized for a long time to the stressful pain of the infamous McCarthy period, Scoundrel Time must have been a most cathartic memoir for Lillian Hellman to write; it is, of the autobiographical trilogy, the most unfeigned and succinct of the three books. Her voice resonates, echoes, and behind hers, the voices of other 'Red Scare' victims closely follow. This is not her book alone; it is a book belonging to a past, present and future generation of people who were, are, and regrettably will be, victims of slanderous tales and virulent gossip. Scoundrel Time searchingly delves into a dark time in our country when Freedom of Speech, Religion, Press, Assembly and Petitioning of government was on a gossamer threshold to nonexistence. This memoir was also clearly the most difficult one for Lillian Hellman to write, for as she herself says, "...I had a strange hangups and they are always hard to explain. Now I tell myself that if I can force them, maybe I can manage. The prevailing eccentricity was and is my inability to feel much against the leading figures of the period, the men who punished me. Senators McCarthy and McCarran, Representatives Nixon, Walter and Wood, all of them, were what they were: men who invented when necessary, maligned even when it wasn't necessary. I do not think they believed much, if anything, of what they said: the time was ripe for a new wave in America, and they seized their political chance to lead it along each day's opportunity, spit-balling whatever and with whoever came into view." (P.37) That 'new wave' hurt a lot of innocent people, human beings who were not spared the iniquitous rod of economic, career and social deprivation all because they, like Hellman, would not name names, who would not cede their code of conviction, honor and belief(s). The irony of this period is a true slap-in-the-face, for the Constitution and Bill of Rights, the most revered parchments of this country were verbally shaken into dust by those who wanted to shout and search out communistic evils where none existed in the first place. Like the Civil War of 1861 - the period of McCarthyism, name dropping, The House Un-American Activities, The Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, it turned brother against brother, friend into foe (Elia Kazan and Clifford Odets are perfect examples), rich people into poor. And in the end - the true tragedy is - nothing came out of the whole mess except a lot of miserable people who, by not subscribing to Truman's loyalty program or proposition of Americanism, sacrificed either their material luxury or worse, their character and integrity. Should a horrid 'craze' of this political and social nature (which really was a political subterfuge) ever arise in this land of republicism/democracy, I would subscribe to the very wise words of Lillian Hellman, "I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions." (P.30)

Required Reading for the Art of Memoir & McCarthy Era.......2000-10-06

Lillian Hellman was one of the most gifted memoirists in the English language. (Read also her "An Unfinished Woman" and "Pentimento.") It is not merely the historical, political, social and personal content of her autobiographical works that elevates them to classics, but her uniquely mellifluous and dexterous command of language. The fact that she was a brilliant playwright has much to do with her gift. Scoundrel Time explores Hellman's and Dashiell Hammett's involvement in The McCarthy [Witchhunt for Communists] Hearings and particularly how she, with the help of good attorneys, got out of naming names and thus sending friends, acquaintances and Hollywood business associates to prison for treason. There has been some question regarding the "truth" in Hellman's memoirs, as there should be in any memoir, for memory is fickle and cannot be trusted--as Hellman herself admitted. Read this long essay on the McCarthy Era as a work of self-reflective art, as exploration of the nature of memory, as one historical document of thousands documenting how history indeed is written by the victor. Read it to better understand just how many people would send their friends and family to prison if pressured.

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