The Time of Your Life premiered at the Booth Theatre on Broadway on October 25, 1939, and was published by Harcourt, Brace the same year. The setting is Nick’s Pacific Street Saloon, Restaurant and Entertainment Palace — a San Francisco waterfront bar. Joe, a wealthy young man of mysterious means, sits at his table all day drinking champagne and sending his devoted companion Tom on errands. Around him, the bar’s regulars pursue their dreams: a pinball player tries to beat the machine, a prostitute looks for love, an old man tells stories about the days when he had power.
The play won both the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award in 1940. Saroyan refused the Pulitzer — stating that commerce had no business judging art — while accepting the Critics’ Circle prize (which he considered a judgment of peers rather than patrons). The refusal made national news and confirmed Saroyan’s reputation as American literature’s great eccentric.
The play’s structure is deliberately loose — more atmosphere than plot, more character than conflict. Its philosophy is explicit in its prefatory note: “In the time of your life, live — so that in that good time there shall be no ugliness or death for yourself or for any life your life touches.”
Collecting The Time of Your Life
First edition (Harcourt, Brace, New York, 1939): Cloth boards with dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition with jacket, fine/fine: $100–$300
- Without jacket, very good: $30–$80
Projected values (2026–2036): Moderate appreciation. Pulitzer Prize winner.
The Refused Pulitzer
The Time of Your Life (1939) is Saroyan’s most important play — a sprawling, plotless celebration of the human spirit set in a San Francisco waterfront saloon. The play won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1940, which Saroyan famously refused, declaring that “commerce should not patronize art.” The play features an eccentric cast: a wealthy young man who watches life from a bar, a prostitute with dreams, a pinball machine champion, and various philosophers and drunks. It is Saroyan’s masterpiece for the stage — warm, funny, and structurally daring in its refusal of conventional plot.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why did Saroyan refuse the Pulitzer? He said he did not believe in prizes and that art should not be judged by commercial institutions. It was a characteristically Saroyan gesture — principled, flamboyant, and slightly self-defeating.