In this perceptive study of the literary career of Lillian Hellman (1905-1984), Alice Griffin and Geraldine Thorsten provide a balanced, in-depth examination of Hellman's major works. In the thirties, when Hellman's theater career began, George Jean Nathan, the dean of theater critics, suggested that although Hellman was the country's foremost playwright, she would never equal a man. Correcting the badly skewed evaluations that such bias fostered, Griffin and Thorsten give Hellman's plays fresh critical assessments as they analyze her rarely acknowledged dramatic gifts for humor, irony,...