Born in Buffalo, New York, Gurney, a graduate of St. Paul's School , attended Williams College and the Yale School of Drama, after which he began teaching Humanities at MIT. He began writing plays such as Scenes from American Life, Children, and The Middle Ages while at MIT, but it was his great success with The Dining Room that allowed him to write full-time. Since The Dining Room, Gurney has written a number of plays, most of them concerning WASP of the American northeast. Gurney also wrote the musical: Love in Buffalo. This was the first musical ever produced at Yale.

Gurney's latest play is "The Grand Manner," a play about his real life encounter with famed actress Katharine Cornell in her production of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. The play will be produced and performed by Lincoln Center for the summer of 2010.

Gurney has also written several novels, including:

• The Snow Ball
• The Gospel According to Joe
• Entertaining Strangers ISBN 0-385-12551-8

Gurney has also appeared in several of his plays including The Dining Room and most notably Love Letters.

In 2006, Gurney was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

• Ancestral Voices
• Another Antigone
• Big Bill
• Buffalo Gal
• A Cheever Evening (based on stories by John Cheever)
• Children
• The Cocktail Hour
• The Comeback
• Crazy Mary
• Darlene
• The David Show
• The Dining Room
• Far East
• The Fourth Wall
• The Golden Age
• The Golden Fleece
• The Guest Lecturer
• Human Events
• Indian Blood
• Labor Day
• Later Life
• The Perfect Party
• The Love Course
• Love Letters
• The Middle Ages
• Mrs. Farnsworth
• O Jerusalem
• The Old Boy
• The Old One-Two
• The Open Meeting
• Overtime
• Post Mortem
• The Problem
• Richard Cory
• Scenes from American Life
• Screen Play
• Sylvia
• Sweet Sue
• The Snow Ball (based on his novel) ISBN 0-88184-214-1
• The Wayside Motor Inn
• What I Did Last Summer

Many of these plays are published by Broadway Play Publishing Inc. and Smith & Kraus Publishing.