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'Definitive' Miller biog

21.02.08 Tom Tivnan

Weidenfeld & Nicolson has acquired the "definitive" biography of Arthur Miller, and is promising new revelations about the playwright's marriage to Marilyn Monroe. Alan Samson, W&N publisher, snapped up UK and Commonwealth rights in Christopher Bigsby's Arthur Miller: The Definitive Biography from Vivien Green at Sheil Land. The book is set for a January 2009 release.

Samson said: "To be honest, it's really difficult to sell books on playwrights, but when I read the manuscript I really had to go for it."

Bigsby, a director of the Arthur Miller Institute at the University of East Anglia, focuses on Miller's most productive period. In the 15 years after the Second World War, he wrote his greatest plays, including "Death of a Salesman" (1949), "The Crucible" (1953) and "A View from the Bridge" (1955).

Miller also became a celebrity, with his stand against the US government's "communist witch hunts" and his marriage to Monroe. Bigsby examines their relationship and the influence it had on Miller's work, with the biography ending after Monroe's death in 1962.

tom tivnan Rights deal Weidenfeld & Nicolson Arthur Miller

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