Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men : Three Stage Versions

Robert Penn Warren's 1946 Pulitzer Prize-winning novelAll the King's Menis one of the undisputed classics of American literature. Fifty years after the novel's publication, Warren's characters still stand as powerful representations of the moral dilemmas faced by individuals in positions of power.All the King's Menhad its genesis in Warren's stage playProud Flesh, unpublished in his lifetime. He also wrote a subsequent unpublished play titledWillie Stark: His Rise and Falland a later dramatic version of the novel that shared the titleAll the King's Men.This volume is the first to collect all three dramatic texts and to publishProud Flesh and Willie Stark.Proud Fleshis particularly fascinating for what it reveals about the development ofAll the King's Menand Warren's changing perceptions of its characters and themes. The other plays, as post-novel writings, provide a forum for Warren to clarify his intentions in the novel. The editors' introduction to this collection reviews the composition history of the works and their relationship to the novel and to each other.The new perspectives on Warren's writing presented inRobert Penn Warren's "All the King's Men": Three Stage Versionsprovide a glimpse into a creative mind struggling with a compelling story and offer readers another way of looking at this American classic. This book is an essential reference in Warren studies that will give students ofAll the King's Menanother context from which to consider Warren's novel.

James A. Grimshaw Jr. is Regents Professor of English at Texas A&M University-Commerce. James A. Perkins is a professor of English at Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania.