Introductory essays include a brief biography on Williams and a quartet of original essays provide valuable context for understanding his achievements. One essay examines the plays within the context of twentieth century culture while another traces the playwright's expressionistic values from his early student play "Me, Vashya" up through Camino Real and appraises A Streetcar Named Desire as Williams's best realization of this aesthetic. Another offers a meditation on the theme of mendacity within Williams's last great success, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, as well as within the play's production and Williams's relationship with his director, Elia Kazan.

On Tennessee Williams / --Biography of Tennessee Williams / -- The Paris review perspective / -- The critical reception of the works of Tennessee Williams / -- Tennessee Williams on America / -- "Getting the colored lights going": expressionism in A streetcar named Desire / -- Mendacity on the stage: "lying and liars" in Cat on a hot tin roof / -- A gallery of witches / -- Culture, power, and the (en)gendering of community: Tennessee Williams and politics / -- Deranged artists: creativity and madness / -- Flying the Jolly Roger: images of escape and selfhood in The glass menagerie / -- "Fifty percent illusion": The mask of the southern belle in Tennessee Williams's A streetcar named Desire, The glass menagerie, and "Portrait of a Madonna" / -- Williams in ebony: black and multi-racial productions of A streetcar named Desire / -- "Something cloudy, something clear": homophobic discourse in Tennessee Williams / -- "sneakin' and spyin'" from Broadway to the Beltway: cold war masculinity, Brick, and homosexual existentialism / -- "Collecting evidence": the natural world in Tennessee Williams' The night of the iguana / -- Red devil battery sign: an approach to a mytho-political theatre / -- Tennessee Williams' Out cry in The two-character play / -- Peeping Tom: voyeurism, taboo, and truth in the world of Williams's short fiction / -- "The transmutation of experience": the aesthetics and themes of Williams's nonfiction / D. Dean Shackelford. On Tennessee Williams -- Biography of Tennessee Williams -- The Paris review perspective -- The critical reception of the works of Tennessee Williams -- Tennessee Williams on America -- "Getting the colored lights going": expressionism in A streetcar named Desire -- Mendacity on the stage: "lying and liars" in Cat on a hot tin roof -- A gallery of witches -- Culture, power, and the (en)gendering of community: Tennessee Williams and politics -- Deranged artists: creativity and madness -- Flying the Jolly Roger: images of escape and selfhood in The glass menagerie -- "Fifty percent illusion": The mask of the southern belle in Tennessee Williams's A streetcar named Desire, The glass menagerie, and "Portrait of a Madonna" -- Williams in ebony: black and multi-racial productions of A streetcar named Desire -- "Something cloudy, something clear": homophobic discourse in Tennessee Williams -- "sneakin' and spyin'" from Broadway to the Beltway: cold war masculinity, Brick, and homosexual existentialism -- "Collecting evidence": the natural world in Tennessee Williams' The night of the iguana -- Red devil battery sign: an approach to a mytho-political theatre -- Tennessee Williams' Out cry in The two-character play -- Peeping Tom: voyeurism, taboo, and truth in the world of Williams's short fiction -- "The transmutation of experience": the aesthetics and themes of Williams's nonfiction.