The Seven Descents of Myrtle is a play in seven scenes by Tennessee Williams. It started as a short story, The Kingdom of Earth, which Williams began in 1942 while in Macon, Georgia, but did not publish until 1954, in the limited edition of his story collection Hard Candy. Williams subsequently adapted the story into a one-act play, "Kingdom of Earth," published in the February 1, 1967, edition of Esquire magazine. He then expanded that play into a full-length seven-scene version, premiered the following year in New York with the title The Seven Descents of Myrtle and published on October 31, 1968, by New Directions as Kingdom of Earth. Its title character is reminiscent of another Williams' heroine, Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire.

Thomas Lanier Williams III, known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the three foremost playwrights of 20th-century American drama.