Anderson, Maxwell

Anderson, Maxwell,1888–1959, American dramatist, b. Atlantic, Pa., grad. Univ. of North Dakota, 1911. His plays, many of which are written in verse, usually concern social and moral problems. Anderson was a journalist until the successful production in 1924 ofWhat Price Glory?,a war drama written with Laurence Stallings.Winterset(1935), based on the Sacco-Vanzetti case, is probably Anderson's most successful verse tragedy. He wrote many historical dramas includingElizabeth the Queen(1930),Mary of Scotland(1933),Valley Forge(1934),Joan of Lorraine(1947),Anne of the Thousand Days(1948), andBarefoot in Athens(1951). Among his other plays areBoth Your Houses(1933),High Tor(1937),The Star Wagon(1937),Key Largo(1939), andThe Eve of St. Mark(1942). He also wrote the librettos for Kurt Weill'sKnickerbocker Holiday(1938) andLost in the Stars(1940). A collection of his poetry,Notes on a Dream,was published in 1972.

His eldest son, Quentin Anderson,1914–2003, b. Minnewauken, N.Dak., was a literary critic, cultural historian, and Columbia Univ. professor (1939–81). Educated at Columbia (B.A., 1937; Ph. D., 1953) and Harvard (M.A., 1945), he was an expert on 19th-century American literature and wrote such books asThe American Henry James(1957),The Imperial Self(1971), andMaking Americans(1992).

See biography by A. S. Shivers (1982); bibliography by M. Cox (1958, repr. 1974).

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