The Bridge of San Luis Rey

“On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travelers into the gulf below.”

With this celebrated sentence Thornton Wilder begins The Bridge of San Luis Rey, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, one of the towering achievements in American fiction, and a novel beloved throughout the world.

By chance, a monk witnesses the tragedy. Brother Juniper then embarks on a quest to prove that it was divine intervention rather than chance that led to the deaths of those who perished in the tragedy. His search leads to his own death—and to Wilder’s timeless investigation into the nature of love and the meaning of the human condition.

This edition includes a foreword by acclaimed author Russell Banks and features previously unpublished notes and other illuminating documentary material about the novel and author.