[Few] passages in [Lillian Hellman's] plays have been lifted directly from life. Not because of a sparsity of dramatic incidents in her life, but simply because her writer's nature did not tolerate such self-indulgence. When she turned to life, she drew from the family circle of her mother and father. Her uncles and aunts on her mother's side had staged exciting and vigorous family battles that had awed and frightened her. Her father's sisters were warm and affectionate, devoted to him and to her. These childhood memories were stamped so indelibly that when playwriting settled on her as a profession, she found a new usefulness for her family. Certainly The Little Foxes, Another Part of the Forest, The Autumn Garden, and Toys in the Attic could not have been written without the backlog of experience her family supplied.

If autobiographical actions photographed from her mature life do not...