William Gibson was born in New York City in 1914, studied for two and one half years at the City College of New York (1930-1932), and now lives in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, with his wife, psychoanalyst Margaret Brenman, and the occasional company of one or another of their two grown sons (Thomas and Daniel). Gibson has published poetry, plays, fiction, and autobiography, but to date he is best known for two stage works: Two for the Seesaw , an extremely successful comedy-drama first presented in 1958 and later made into a motion picture, and The Miracle Worker, a classic American play--and television play, and film--the full stature of which has yet to be realized.

The distinguishing features of Gibson's works are an uninhibited combination of humor, high and low, often with very touching emotional effect; an elegance of style which resides not in high-flown words but in a finely tuned sense of...