(They had warned Billy Woods so often before and had not y...)
They had warned Billy Woods so often before and had not yet asked him to resign that the rest of the staff believed they never would. This was reasonable, because there was only one Billy Woods, and the newspapers that wanted geniuses were many. Woods wore glasses that slid down his nose, and he was a born reporter. He had an absent-minded manner that went well with the glasses, but his nose for news was the best on Park Row...
("Why Marry? is a comedy, which "tells the truth about mar...)
"Why Marry? is a comedy, which "tells the truth about marriage". We find a family in the throes of proving the morality of marriage to a New Age Woman. Can the family defend marriage to this self-supporting girl? Will she be convinced that marriage is the ultimate sacredness of a relationship or will she hold to her perception that marriage is the basis of separating two lovers. "Why Marry?" won the first Pulitzer Prize for Drama."
Jesse Lynch Williams was an American playwright, journalist, and author. He wrote news stories, short stories, and novels in addition to plays.
Background
Jesse Lynch Williams was born on August 17, 1871, in Sterling, Illinois, United States. He was the son of Meade Creighton, a Presbyterian minister, and Elizabeth Williams. Williams was named for his grandfather, Jesse Lynch Williams, a well-known civil engineer and government director of the Union Pacific Railway.
Education
After attending Beloit Academy in Wisconsin, Williams went to Princeton University, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1892 and a Master of Arts degree in 1895.
After graduation, Jesse Lynch Williams became a reporter for The New York Sun in 1893, and, after two years, started working for Scribner’s Magazine. Meanwhile, he contributed stories to many New York newspapers, and, in 1900, founded the Princeton Alumni Weekly. Princeton Stories, Adventures of a Freshman, and The Girl and the Game are just a few of the short stories he wrote based on his experiences as a Princeton undergraduate. From 1904 to 1929, Williams wrote six novels and four plays, including The Newspaper Stories, which was successfully produced in 1906.
His first play, Why Marry? was originally And So They Were Married (1914). In 1922, he wrote a play about divorce entitled Why Not?. It was a companion play to Why Marry? but it was not a sequel. Love, marriage, and divorce were also themes in his 1925 play, Lovely Lady.