anemic printed page a very limp object as compared with the power of your own personality which you infuse into his stage presentment". President Calvin Coolidge commented that the production was a "public service". Booth Tarkington told him, "I would rather see you play Sherlock Holmes than be a child again on Christmas morning." Gillette's last appearance on stage was in Austin Strong's Three Wise Fools in 1936. Gillette died on April 29, 1937, aged 83, in Hartford, due to a pulmonary hemorrhage. He was buried in the Hooker family plot at Riverside Cemetery, Farmington, Connecticut, next to his wife. Bibliography Gillette wrote 13 original plays, 7 adaptations and some collaborations, encompassing farce, melodrama and novel adaption. Two pieces based on the Civil War remain his greatest works: Held by the Enemy (1886) and Secret Service (1896). Both were successful with both the public and the critics, and Secret Service remains the only one of his plays available today on commercial VHS and DVD from a 1977 Broadway Theater Archive production starring John Lithgow and Meryl Streep. His own bibliography follows: Bullywingle the Beloved (performed in Hartford, Connecticut, October 3, 1872, again in March 1873) The Twins of Siam (July 1879; never produced) The Professor (Summer 1879 tryout in Columbus, Ohio) Esmeralda (adapted from short story by Frances Hodgson Burnett, October 29, 1881, Madison Square Theatre, New York; published by the Madison Square Theatre in 1881) Digby's Secretary, also known as The Private Secretary (adapted from Gustave Von Moser's Der Bibliothekar, September 29, 1884, New York Comedy Theatre, New York). Der Bibliothekar, (February 9, 1885, Madison Square Theatre, New York) Held by the Enemy (February 22, 1886, Criterion Theatre, Brooklyn, New York; published by Samuel French Ltd. in 1898) She (Dramatization of novel by Rider Haggard, November 29, 1887, Niblo's Garden, New York) A Legal Wreck (August 14, 1888, Madison Square Theatre, New York; published by the Rockwood Publishing Company in 1890) A Legal Wreck (Novelization, Rockwood Pub. Co., 1888) A Confederate Casualty (1888; never produced) Robert Elsmere (Partial dramatization of novel by Mary Augusta Ward; unable to obtain Mrs. Ward's permission, Gillette discontinued work on the project, and it was dramatized by other playwrights and produced without his participation) "Mr. William Gillette Surveys the Field", Harper's Weekly, Vol. XXXIII, No. 1676, February 2, 1889, Supplement, pp. 98–99 All the Comforts of Home (adapted from Carl Lauf's Ein Toller Einfall,