Eugene O'Neill remembered / edited by Brenda Murphy and George Monteiro.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Murphy, Brenda, 1950- editor.

Monteiro, George, editor.

Series:

American writers remembered

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

O'Neill, Eugene, 1888-1953--Friends and associates.

O'Neill, Eugene.

O'Neill, Eugene, 1888-1953--Family.

O'Neill, Eugene, 1888-1953.

Dramatists, American--20th century--Biography.

Dramatists, American.

Families.

Friends and associates.

Friendship.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xx, 378 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Tuscaloosa : The University of Alabama Press, [2017]

Summary:

Eugene O'Neill Remembered offers new views into the playwright's life by capturing the direct memories of those who were close to him through interviews, memoirs, and other recollections. These sixty-two remembrances create an unprecedented image of O'Neill. Known principally as the author of some of the most significant plays in the American dramatic canon and as one of America's Nobel Laureates in literature, O'Neill rarely gave interviews and offered few details about himself. As a consequence, his life has long been shrouded in myth. He also abetted some of the misconceptions about his youth by, for example, advocating the story that he was expelled from Princeton for throwing a rock through Woodrow Wilson's window or by exaggerating the amount of time he had spent at sea. The legend of the hard-drinking, tormented playwright with a grim view of life was further reinforced when Long Day's Journey into Night was produced in 1956, three years after his death instead of the twenty-five years he had insisted on. The portrayal of O'Neill as a tragic figure has been solidified in a number of biographies. The purpose of this collection, however, is to present O'Neill as others saw him and described him in their first-person accounts. In the course of these reminiscences, many of the vast and various narrators conflict with and contradict each other. Unlike other accounts of O'Neill's life, much of the focus is on impressions instead of facts. The result is a revealing composite portrait of a key figure in twentieth-century American literary history. This extensive collection offers insights unavailable in any other book and will hold massive appeal for scholars and students interested in American literature, Eugene O'Neill, and theater history, as well as anyone keen to uncover intimate details of the life of one of America's greatest writers.

Contents:

Part 1 New London, School, and Wandering (1888-1913) 7

1 George C. Tyler 9

2 Warren H. Hastings and Richard F. Weeks 11

3 Kathleen Jenkins Pitt-Smith 18

4 William Lee 20

5 Piette Loving 22

6 Mabel Haynes 25

7 Clayton Hamilton 28

8 Irvin S. Cobb 31

9 Frederick P. Latimer 33

10 Arthur B. McGinley 36

11 Robert A. Woodworth 39

Part 2 Cambridge, Provincetown, and Greenwich Village (1914-1917) 43

12 Beatrice Ashe Maher 45

13 John V. A. Weaver 47

14 Susan Glaspell 51

15 Mary Heaton Vorse 53

16 Hutchins Hapgood 56

17 Harry Kemp 59

18 Adele Nathan 66

19 Dorothy Day 70

20 William Carlos Williams 74

Part 3 Provincetown Playhouse, Peaked Hill Bar, Ridgefield, Broadway (1918-1927) 77

21 Hazel Hawthorne Werner 79

22 Juliet Throckmorton 84

23 Manuel Zora 88

24 Edmund Wilson 89

25 Charles O'Brien Kennedy 92

26 Agnes Boulton 94

27 Jasper Deeter 102

28 Stark Young 104

29 Malcolm Cowley 110

30 Hart Crane 118

31 Harold De Polo 121

32 Brooks Atkinson 130

33 Calvin Hoffman 132

Part 4 Europe, Georgia, the Theatre Guild, California (1928-1937) 141

34 Louis Fladger 143

35 John Lardner 144

36 Bennett Cerf 146

37 Lawrence Langner 150

38 Brooks Atkinson 158

39 Rouben Mamoulian 161

40 Theresa Helburn 165

41 George Jean Nathan 187

42 Maxine Edie Benedict 198

Part 5 California and New York (1938-1948) 201

43 Carlotta Monterey O'Neill 203

44 Marcella Markham 211

45 Ingrid Bergman 212

46 Sean O'Casey 215

47 Karl Schriftgiesser 220

48 S. J. Woolf 224

49 Max Gordon 229

50 Herbert J. Stoeckel 231

51 Saxe Commins 237

52 Bennett Cerf 249

53 Paul Crabtree 252

54 Mary Welch 257

Part 6 Marblehead and Boston (1948-1953) 263

55 Saxe Commins 265

56 Carlotta Monterey O'Neill 276

57 Bennett Cerf 281

58 Earle F. Johnson 283

59 Frederic B. Mayo 287

60 Sallie Coughlin 290

61 Russel Grouse 295

62 Carl Van Vechten 303.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780817319311

081731931X

OCLC:

950004341

Publisher Number:

99970149970