Franklin Library leather edition of Tennessee Williams's "Selected Plays," Illustrated by Herbert Tauss, a Limited edition, one of the SIGNED 60 series, Personally signed by TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, published in 1990. Bound in brown leather, the book has brown French moire silk end leaves, a satin book marker, hubbed spine, acid-free paper, Symth-sewn binding, gold gilding on three edges---in near FINE condition. In a 'special message' to subscribers while living in Key West, Florida, in 1980, Williams wrote: "These plays come under the category "The Early Williams" and they are generally considered to be the best of my work. . .a writer may do many things: but what he lives for is writing: by it, yes, but far more importantly he lives for it." "At heart I am a very shy man: and yet I find myself giggling, cacking, grinning as if I'd taken leave of my sense. . . Assessing one's own work?  That is an impossibility to begin with; a tasteless, thankless, and pointless activity. . .I was not, however, a precocious youngster when I suddenly became known as an American playwright.  I had been writing in various forms since early adolescence, but I was thirty-four years old when my first successful play, "The Glass Menagerie" appeared on a professional stage."  The six plays include: "The Glass Menagerie," "A Streetcar Named Desire," "Camino Real," "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," "Sweet Bird of Youth," and "The Night of the Iguana." Thomas Lanier Williams, who lived from 1914-1983, was born in Columbus, Mississippi. During the winter of 1944–45, his "memory play" THE GLASS MENAGERIE was successfully produced in Chicago. The play moved to New York where it became an instant and enormous hit during its long Broadway run. The play is the story of a young Tom Wingfield, his disabled sister, Laura, and their controlling mother Amanda, who tries to make a match between Laura and a gentleman caller. "The Glass Menagerie" won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for best play of the season. The huge success of his next play, "A Streetcar Named Desire," in 1947 secured his reputation as a great playwright. Between 1948 and 1959 seven of his plays were performed on Broadway: SUMMER AND SMOKE (1948), THE ROSE TATTOO (1951), CAMINO REAL (1953), CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF (1955), ORPHEUS DESCENDING (1957), GARDEN DISTRICT (1958), and SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH (1959). By 1959 he had earned two Pulitzer Prizes, three New York Drama Critics' Circle Awards, three Donaldson Awards, and a Tony Award. In 1979, four years before his death, he was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame. 565 pages----a VERY RARE title---since Tennessee Williams did not like to autograph books! I offer Combined shipping.