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Wilder, Thornton

The Bridge of San Luis Rey, [19] 75; The Ides of March, [90] 76

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20260601100055 Noonie Minogue on Thornton Wilder, The Ides of March

Roman Voices

Noonie Minogue on Thornton Wilder The Ides of March

In a seafront café, waiting for the boat to Piraeus, I saw a book nestling in a cardboard box of discarded holiday thrillers: The Ides of March (1948) by Thornton Wilder, a 1960s Penguin Modern Classic. Scuffed and grey, it beckoned with the modest allure of a vestal virgin in a troupe of painted harlots. An epistolary novel about Julius Caesar in the last year of his life – how could I never have heard of it? I paid one euro and hurried on to the boat with my prize. Wilder was a gregarious loner who loved nothing so much as a ship’s deck ‘amid the careening smoke stacks and the flying spray’ – it was the perfect place for us to meet.
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Brother Juniper’s Inquisition

Rachel Campbell-Johnston on Thornton Wilder, The Bridge of San Luis Rey

Sometimes, confessing to a favourite book can bring a flush of embarrassment to the cheeks. We tend to make such selections at a susceptible age and they don’t necessarily stand up to the test of time. ‘Isn’t that a bit . . . well . . . teenaged?’ some inquirer will ask with a shrivelling look. I am only too aware of this snooty equivalent of the lifted lorgnette as I admit to a long-standing love of Thornton Wilder’s little slip of a book: The Bridge of San Luis Rey.

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