The Portable Arthur Miller.

• Author: Kellman, Steven G.

Arthur Miller lost his anonymity with the smash success of his play "All My Sons" in 1947. Exceeding the Warholian quota of 15 minutes, his fame has extended beyond half the Biblical span of 80 years that the author reached on Oct. 17, 1995. Miller concludes his 1987 autobiography Timebends by observing: "We are all connected, watching one another. Even the trees." The premise of a playwright's life is that all are spectators linked in the act of perception. During the 51 years since "The Man Who Had All the Luck" opened and ran just four performances on Broadway, Miller probably has connected more people throughout the world than any other American who has written for the stage.

With a play in every decade since the 1930s, Miller has created a canon that Christopher Bigsby computes reverently: "They add up to an alternative history of a troubled century." To commemorate the playwright's 80th birthday, Bigsby has edited a revised version of The Portable Arthur Miller.

Arthur Miller first became portable in 1970 when, like William Shakespeare, James Joyce, John Steinbeck, and Rudyard Kipling, his life's work was honored by reduction to a single volume. The new edition includes recent work--"The American Clock" (1980), "The Last Yankee" (1993), "Broken Glass" (1994), and excerpts from Timebends--in addition to "Death of a Salesman" (1949), "The Crucible" (1953), and "After the Fall" (1964).

Miller, who served an eventful term as international president of PEN, the International Association of Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists, and Novelists...