When TIME'S Education Editor Bruce Barton Jr. was writing a cover story on Robert M. Hutchins (TIME, Nov. 21, 1949), then chancellor of the University of Chicago, one of the many men he interviewed was Playwright Thornton Wilder. Barton found Wilder to be one of the best authorities on Hutchins. Wilder and Hutchins first met at college (Oberlin and Yale), and Hutchins later invited Wilder to serve on his faculty at Chicago.

For last week's cover story on Wilder, the tables were turned. Interviewed in Pasadena, Hutchins announced to a TIME correspondent: "I am the greatest living authority on Thornton Wilder. I think it is true that he is my best living friend; all the others have drunk themselves to death."

P:But even "the greatest living authority" wasn't enough to produce the rounded picture of Wilder that Barton needed to write his cover story. In addition to interviews with a number of the writer's other friends and early associates, Barton and Researcher Marjorie Burns spent a day with Wilder's sister Isabel at her home in New Haven.

There, in an interview punctuated by frequent trips to supervise plumbers who were installing a new dishwasher, Miss Wilder was extremely helpful in providing incidents from her brother's early life. Barton noticed that, for a writer, there were few books around the house, wondered about it aloud. Isabel explained that Wilder gave books away all the time, and that she could "barely hang on to copies of books written by members of the family"--a small library in itself, including three novels by Isabel. Giving away books seemed to be a family weakness; Researcher Burns was given a cookbook before they left. But Isabel Wilder was hesitant about disclosing her brother's whereabouts, knowing that he had gone to Europe with the intent of secluding himself to write, and the only address she gave was American Express, Paris.

That was the starting point for TIME'S Paris bureau when they were asked to find the author himself. The American Express office was holding letters for Wilder, but didn't know where he was. Correspondent Fred Klein got in touch with the American Embassy, Paris publishers and others, finally received word that Wilder could probably be found at Saint-Moritz.

After calling five hotels at Saint-Moritz, Klein located the writer at one of them. Wilder promised to keep him posted on his address as he traveled.

Six days later, a postcard came from Zurich. A short time later, another card came from Munich, which read: "I feel like a man on parole reporting to my sponsor, Mr. Klein . . . Punctually yours, Thornton Wilder." Wilder moved on to Baden-Baden, then back to Munich, then to Innsbruck. London Correspondent A. T. Baker caught up with him there and spent four days with him.

Each day fell into a definite pattern.

Reports Baker: "Wilder took mornings for work on a UNESCO report. We had lunch together, finding some quiet Stube where we could sit long after other guests had departed, while he talked and I scribbled, or prodded.

Then usually a walk around the snowy town, with Wilder ducking into a baroque church, or discoursing on the quality of local theater or on what happened at this corner during the resistance uprising. Each evening we would dine together, then retire before 12...

He ^professes to long for solitude but can't stay in a town two days before acquiring acquaintances all over it.

"Wilder talked a lot in those four days, to his own amusement. Says he: 'Usually, when somebody asks me to talk about myself, I go all shy and change the subject.' But once, in a moment of exuberance, he cried : 'I have no secrets from you, Massa Baker!' And in a letter he wrote after I left, he said : 'You came to Innsbruck to extract by pickax a few timid and grudging facts from a fretful hermit, and what you got was Niagara from the Ancient Mariner.' He exhorted me to become a headmaster some day -- which, coming from a teacher like himself, I took to be a compliment. He remembered Barton warmly, but as far as I remember had no recommendation for his becoming a headmaster-- field probably crowded." Baker's 15,000-word report provided the bulk of the additional material Barton needed to write his story -- the fifth cover story he has done for TIME. The others: Hutchins, Wellesley President Margaret Clapp (Oct.

10, 1949), Denver School Superintendent Kenneth Oberholtzer (Feb. 20, 1950), and Yala President A. Whitney Griswold (June 11, 1951).

Cordially yours,

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.