6No play in the modern theater has so captured the imagination and heart of the American public as Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie. Since its premier in Chicago in 1944, Menagerie has been the bravura piece for great actresses from Laurette Taylor to Jessica Tandy and Joanne Woodward, and it is studied and performed in classrooms and theaters around the world. The Glass Menagerie (in the reading text the author preferred) is now available with an introduction by Robert Bray, which reappraises the play more than half a century after it won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. This edition also includes Williams's essay The Catastrophe of Success, on the impact of sudden fame on a struggling writer, as well as short section of Williams's own production notes and a special guide to the play for students, prepared by Kate Walker.