Arthur Miller, 1915-2005

Arthur Miller, one of the most widely read playwrights of the late 20th century (as The Crucible became an American junior high school standards), died earlier today. As Marilyn Berger notes in NYT: "Mr. Miller grappled with the weightiest matters of social conscience in his plays and in them often reflected or reinterpreted the stormy and very public elements of his own life." Unfortunately, for some reason the Times website is cutting the story off after the third paragraph, which only takes us to the premiere of Death of a Salesman, but hopefully they'll get that straightened out soon, as the remaining online coverage is as of this writing limited to an AP dispatch and a "death watch" from this morning's New York Post which reminds us that Miller became "an intellectual hero to the American left" after being charged with contempt of Congress for refusing to play along with HUAC. UPDATE: GalleyCat points out the tactlessness of The Book Standard in quoting the bad reviews Miller's fiction got from its sister publication, Kirkus.

photo: Sam Falk/NYT