Richard Hoffman - Arthur Miller collection

Brooklyn-based theater collector and book dealer Richard Hoffman built a number of literary collections around American playwrights over a period of many years.

Hoffman has said that he entered the United States Army in the 1950s as an actor and left as a writer. His military experience led to an assignment to create a television program titled "Your Army in View," which consisted of interviews and live drama. After his discharge from the service in 1955, Hoffman taught in the drama department of The City University of New York. During this period he was awarded a Eugene O'Neill fellowship for playwriting. He also began to seriously collect rare books and first editions of contemporary American dramatists, notably the playwrights Eugene O'Neill, Arthur Miller, and Neil Simon. Hoffman's interest in collecting first editions led to his career as an antiquarian book dealer.

American dramatist, writer, and essayist Arthur Miller (1915-2005) is considered a pioneer of expressionistic realism in post-World War II American theater.

During the late 1940s and early 1950s, Miller's stage plays began receiving a number of awards, including the Drama Critics' Circle Awards, 1947, for All My Sons , and 1949, for Death of a Salesman ; Tony Awards, 1947, for All My Sons , 1949, for Death of a Salesman , and 1953, for The Crucible ; Donaldson Awards, 1947, for All My Sons , 1949, for Death of a Salesman , and 1953, for The Crucible ; Pulitzer Prize for drama, 1949, for Death of a Salesman . Frequently cited as one of the central works of twentieth-century American drama, Death of a Salesman remains Miller's best known work.

Miller's play concerning the Salem witch trials, The Crucible (1953), has been interpreted by some critics as an allegory for the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) Trials, which investigated the motion picture industry searching for communist sympathizers in the late 1940s through the 1950s. Miller himself, accused of communist sympathies, was subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee, but refused to provide the committee with the names of other supposed communists. As a result Miller was found in contempt of Congress, but the conviction was overturned in 1958. During this same period Miller's life was affected by his marriage to the actress Marilyn Monroe, whom he wed in 1956. The public attention that surrounded the couple combined with Monroe's troubled fame proved difficult for Miller. However, his script for The Misfits (1961), based on a short story he first published in Esquire magazine in 1957, was written with Monroe in mind and reveals the admirable qualities he saw in her. The couple divorced in 1961. In After the Fall (1967), Miller further revealed the complexities of his relationship with Monroe, but within a broader thematic context that addresses man's alienation. One of Miller's most successful Broadway plays, The Price (1968), recalls the themes of his earlier works, such as All My Sons and Death of a Salesman . His other plays include Incident at Vichy (1964), The Archbishop's Ceiling (1977), The American Clock (1980), The Ride Down Mt. Morgan (1991), and Broken Glass (1994).

As a socially conscientious writer, Miller has promoted human rights and artistic freedom; while serving as the president of International P.E.N. (1965-1969), Miller worked to open the organization to Soviet Bloc countries and to provide support for imprisoned and persecuted writers. He is credited with vitalizing the organization during his time as president.

Miller has received many honors for his writing, including an Obie Award, two New York Drama Critics' Awards, two Emmy Awards, three Tony Awards, the Pulitzer Prize (1949), the American Academy of Arts and Letters gold medal (1959), a John F. Kennedy Award for Lifetime Achievement (1984), the Jerusalem Prize (2003), and many other honors.

Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2004, reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: The Gale Group, 2004.