# Death of a Salesman

**Author:** Arthur Miller
**Grade range:** Grades 11–12
**Age range:** 16–18
**First published:** 1949
**Page count:** 144
**Genre:** Drama
**ISBN-13:** `9780140481341`
**ISBN-10:** `0140481346`
**Canonical URL:** https://readinglist.school/book/death-of-a-salesman
**License:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) — please credit ReadingList.school when citing.

## About this book

An aging traveling salesman, Willy Loman, grapples with failure and delusion as his career and family collapse around him. Miller's Pulitzer-winning play is a staple of 11th and 12th grade American Literature, AP English Literature, and IB DP drama syllabi.

## Themes

- American Dream
- failure
- mental health
- fatherhood
- capitalism

## Content notes

- suicide
- infidelity
- mental illness

Common Sense Media age recommendation: 14+

## Where this book is assigned

### AP English Literature & Composition

- **recommended** · 12th grade — [source: AP Lit drama representative text](https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-english-literature-and-composition)

### Common Core State Standards (ELA)

- **recommended** · 12th grade — [source: CCSS ELA Appendix B, grades 11-CCR drama exemplar](https://achievethecore.org/page/2699)

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