Product Description
1929. Generally agreed to be one of the most significant forces in the history of the American theater, O'Neill is a three-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize. His enormous output is in the tradition of realism established by Strindberg and Ibsen. His works introduced Americans to the techniques of the great European realists. Realism for Americans was a move away from the sentimental comedies, the pathetic dramas, and the melodrama that dominated the American stage from before the Civil War to World War I. Dynamo was expressionist in style and demonstrating his considerable range. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing. ... Read more

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THIS 96 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: The Plays of Eugene O'Neill Including Anna Christie, Beyond the Horizon, Emperor Jones, The Hairy Ape and Days Without End, by Eugene O'Neill. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 1417913444. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (25)

EXCELLENT FOR THOSE THAT NEED COMFORT!
We have (well had) 4 beagles...my husband bought this book when our "little girl" became very sick.She has since passed on and he shared it with me the morning she died.It now sits on our coffee table as a memory of her and I read it when I get sad or lonely and think of her.Even though I cry every time I read it, it also makes me smile because I know she is better off and no longer suffering.The other day a dear friend our ours had to put his best friend of 11 years down and we bought him a copy.I hope it helps him as much as it helped and will continue to help us.

A must read for those who have lost or will lose their furry friends....buy extras to give as gifts!

Must read for pet owners
This book has helped me and I've given it to many others who've lost pets. Many time pet owners feel silly about sharing their grief over the loss of a pet so the tendency is to internalize the pain and hurt for fear of hear "it's only a dog." I'm here, again, to purchase a copy for my brother who today had to part company with his German Shepard of 17 years. His heart is heavy and I hope that this "...Last Will and Testament.." will help him as it helps me -- 15 years later -- grieve and rejoice in the life of a beloved family member.

Comfort for Caretakers Left Behind
This brief little book reminds us humans that we need to let our animals be animals in the end.As much as we love them, when we prolong their lives beyond their capacity to do dogly things, we are causing them to suffer.

Written from the 'viewpoint' of Blemie, a border collie, he stresses that dogs lead a simple life with simple needs and ask only from us to be loved and tenderly cared for.Part of that tender care is to allow the animal to die with dignity and to not linger with diseases and disabilities as we do with our human loved ones.

It is a sweet tribute to an obviously beloved family pet and will give a modicum of comfort to those suffering grief, remorse, and guilt from having had to 'play God' with their own furry charges.Buy it for yourself or give it as a gift.

A dog person writes for other dog people who mourn
After losing my fur covered child (a reference you just dont get if you are not a pet person), a friend sent me this book in my grief.

Here is a great author, long gone, who writes about his own lost dog, showing the amazing effect a 4 legged friend can have on any of us.

This book was a real help at a tough time, putting into words what a dog might have said, in his last will.

I bought 4, to have on hand, when friends lose dogs.
Already used one.

Highly recommended.

Touching hearts
I gave this book to a friend who lost her dog. The essay is very moving and the art is fantastic. For any dog lover. ... Read more

Product Description
The first American dramatist to ever receive the Nobel Prize, Eugene O'Neill is the most renowned American playwright of the 20th century. Included in this edition are four plays from his extraordinary career: "Beyond the Horizon, Anna Christie, The Emperor Jones", known for its unusual stage devices and powerful use of symbolism, and "The Hairy Ape", one of O'Neill's experiments in expressionism. . ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Quartet of Great Theatrical Extremes
Eugene O'Neill (1888-1953) is generally considered the greatest American playwright of the 20th Century. Today casual readers and playgoers are most likely to know his work through two plays written in the early 1940s: the celebrated The Iceman Cometh and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Long Day's Journey Into Night. But the great bulk of O'Neill's work was done between about 1914 and 1933--and although the power of his later work is undeniable, it was actually his earlier work that led to his 1936 Nobel Prize for Literature.

With an insightful introduction by A.R. Gurney, author of such playscripts as The Dining Room, this reasonably-priced volume presents four of O'Neill's earliest successes, including two Pulitzer Prize winners.Each of the four is remarkable in its own way, and taken together they offer a memorable overview of the ideas, themes, and theatrical concepts that O'Neill would continue to expand upon throughout the rest of his career.

The two "realistic" dramas of the quartet took the Pulitzer Prize: Beyond the Horizon, first staged in 1920, and Anna Christie, first staged in 1921.But although the plays are realistic in tone, it would be a mistake to consider them realistic in ultimate quality--for it is here that O'Neill begins to grapple with themes of fate, of inevitability that critics would tag as "naturalistic."

Beyond the Horizon offers the tale of two brothers who separate and experience a role reversal of sorts when one marries the love of his life--only to find bitterness, disillusionment, and disappointment.Anna Christie, a play which is still frequently revived, offers the tale of a young prostitute who attempts her past behind by returning to her father--only to find herself caught up in another but equally harsh fate.Both plays are extremely powerful and both offer O'Neill's richness of theme and concept and both had extremely positive critical and popular support when they debuted; both, however, are also deeply flawed works with final acts that do not quite manage to bring O'Neill's ideas to a completely satisfactory conclusion.

It is really in the two remaining plays that O'Neill first finds complete artistic success, plays which are not in the least realistic and which critics would describe as expressionistic.Whatever word is used, again O'Neill plays with the same sense of inevitability, the same idea that each person is his own prisoner, a prisoner who can only be released from his cage by death.

First staged slightly before Beyond the Horizon in 1920, The Emperor Jones proved extremely startling in form. The play presents the tale of "Emperor" Jones, a black man of great physical power but limited insight who escapes from racially repressive America to an island where he bullies his way to the throne.But ironically, instead of working to create a society that is less repressive, he merely repeats what he has learned and evolves into an abusive ruler.When his subjects rebel, he makes a marathon run through the jungle to escape ... only to find his past transgressions rising before him as the pursuing drums draw ever closer.Like Anna Christie, The Emperor Jones remains one of O'Neill's most frequently staged early works.

O'Neill's 1922 The Hairy Ape is only slightly less successful than The Emperor Jones, and again finds O'Neill working concepts of personal inevitability into an expressionistic form; indeed, it is easily the single most expressionistic play of O'Neill's entire output.It presents the story of Yank, a burly lowbrow stoker who works in the flaming hell of an ocean liner's boiler room.Proud of his work and of himself, Yank is outraged when he is insulted by a society woman as a "hairy ape"--and goes in search of the newly discovered society that rejects him.But the instant Yank steps outside his boiler room he falls victim to repeated rejection, and like the Emperor Jones he pays the ultimate price for rattling the bars of his personal prison. Difficult to cast and extremely hard to stage, for all its power The Hairy Ape is rarely revived today.

Although all four plays, flaws and all, are remarkably fine and extremely important in the development of 20th century theatre, I do not normally recommend any O'Neill script to the casual reader.On the page, his dialogue and constructions have an unnatural quality that makes for difficult reading, and although he is usually very specific in scenic and business description it is often very difficult to imagine how the play performs before an audience.Consequently, readers without a significant background in theatre are likely to find his works challenging to read--but even so it is a challenge worth the effort, and for any one serious about theatre arts all four of these plays are essentials.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer ... Read more

Product Description
Never before in the annals of American letters have biographers returned to their subject with the aim of radically rethinking and retelling their story form beginning to end.

Arthur and Barbara Gelb's O'Neill: Life with Monte Cristo is the first volume of the completely rewritten biography of America's only Nobel Prize-winning playwright. The Gelbs originally published the first full-scale life of the dramatist in 1962, nine years after his death. In the intervening thirty-eight years, they have conducted extensive interviews and have unearthed masses of hitherto unknown or withheld material-letters, diaries, scenarios-from which they have fashioned this supremely definitive life of O'Neill.

The Gelbs take O'Neill from his lonely childhood through his seafaring, adventure-filled, and often self-destructive youth. This new research and perspective probes O'Neill's psychological torment over his mother's rejection and his father's benevolent tyranny, his suicide attempt, his struggle with alcoholism, and his tumultuous love affairs. This first volume follows O'Neill to his first triumph on Broadway with Beyond the Horizon that set him on the path toward the ultimate brilliant achievements of The Iceman Cometh, A Moon for the Misbegotten, and what is universally regarded as America's greatest play, Long Day's Journey into Night.Amazon.com Review
If at first you don't succeed... well, actually, Arthur and Barbara Gelb's 1962 book about Eugene O'Neill was a resounding success by any measure; for years, theirs was the definitive account of the Nobel Prize-winning playwright and his work. Far from resting on their laurels, however, the Gelbs spent the next 38 years continuing their research, interviewing O'Neill's family and friends and digging up new sources of information. Now they've produced O'Neill: Life with Monte Cristo, both a rewrite of their 1962 biography and a major literary event in its own right. The first installment of a projected trilogy, O'Neill uses the plays themselves as a jumping-off point for an exploration of the playwright's life, including substantial discussion of his colorful father, his Irish ancestors, and his troubled early years. This later work gains not only from its new source materials and widened scope but also from what the Gelbs note is a "changed sensibility"--both in themselves and the world around them. Those 38 intervening years have brought increased personal understanding and remarkable developments in O'Neill scholarship, they write, and O'Neill benefits from both. Marked by meticulous attention to detail and daring leaps in chronology, the Gelbs' biography is a remarkable reevaluation of one of our most violent and original American talents. --Greta Kline ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Volume 1 of a planned trilogy
This is no doubt the definitive biography of O'Neill's early life, but please note that this revision of their complete 1962 biography is only the first third of a planned trilogy, covering only the years up to 1918.

Reviews from the year 2000 mention plans to have the rest of the biography published by 2002 or 2004, but that doesn't appear to have happened yet.Does anyone know anything about the rest of the story with this?

Incredible biography
This revised version of the Gelb's famous biography from the sixties is an incredible read.It traces the life of O'Neill from his early beginningsto his first Broadway play, Beyond the Horizon.One gets an in-depth viewof his life with his parents and brother.Monte Cristo provides the modernreader with an enriched biographical background that really elucidatesaspects of O'Neill's masterwork, Long Day's Journey Into Night.Thisbiography is clearly written, thoughtful, provocative, and interesting. It's definitely one of the great literary biographies of an Americanwriter. ... Read more

Product Description
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

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"...essential to any understanding of...O'Neill if only because they demystify him." -Arthur Miller, The New York Times Book Review ... Read more

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Sheaffer's two-volume biography of American platwright Eugene O'Neill-the second volume of which won a Pulitzer Prize-makes use of previously unknown documents and numerous interviews to present an insightful look at O'Neill's troubled life. ... Read more

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Written in 1936, but first staged posthumously in the late fifties, this play is the sole survivor of an ambitious cycle of plays spanning several generations of one "far from model" American family. The author received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1936 and four Pulitzer Prizes. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Culture clash
The setting of the play is 1828, Melody's tavern, not far from Boston.The Yankee gentry won't let the tavern owner, Cornelius Melody of Galway, come near them, a cousin of Con, Mickey Maloy relates.Con mistreats his wife, Nora. Sara is Con's daughter.Sara contends her father prefers his mare to his family.There are money woes.Nora has pride in her love for her husband.Sara is interested in Simon Harford, a rich man's son who attended Harvard, now living the life of a tinker, a tramp.Sara claims that Simon is a born dreamer.Nora says that Simon has the touch of a poet in him.Simon is timid.He hasn't told Sara yet he is in love with her.

At Talavera the Duke of Wellington commended Con's bravery.Con fancies himself a Byronic hero.Factually speaking, he is the owner of a tavern and he drinks too much.Mrs. Henry Harford, Deborah, arrives while Con is preening before the mirror.Simon's mother received an unsigned letter telling her about Simon and Sara.Simon's grandfather had been an idealist.Deborah sees that Sara is strong, ambitious, and determined.Deborah warns Sara that Harfords never part with their dreams.

Sara is put into a state of hysterical laughter because her father, Con, has the presumption to speak with Simon about the terms of a marriage.Gadsby, an attorney representing Henry Harford, arrives.He tells Con that Harford opposes the marriage of Simon and Sara.Henry Harford offers a monetary settlement for nonmarriage.Seeking an interview with Henry Harford, Con is beaten by the Harford servants.In a state of lunacy he kills his mare.In the end Sara comes to see that her mother is strange and powerful and that she should follow the example of her mother.

This is a beautiful play.Reading it offers some consolation for not seeing it produced.

A powerful, unjustly neglected play
A Touch of the Poet is the only completed work in what Eugene O'Neillhoped to make into a nine-play cycle entitled "A Tale of Possessors,Self-dispossessed."Set in 1828 near Boston, it centers around ConMelody, an Irish immigrant who takes pride in having served withdistinction under Wellington in the war against Napoleon and who fancieshimself as a distinguished gentleman despite all evidence to the contrary. He is married to Nora, who he in some ways detests due to her peasant birth(Melody was born into a wealthy family, though it acquired that wealthrather unethically), and his grown daughter Sara is in love with SimonHarford, the son of a legitimately wealthy Yankee.Despite being severelyin debt, Con insists on maintaining airs of gentlemanliness--he keeps ahorse solely for the purpose of showing off, and, on the day the play isset, he throws a lavish party in celebration of the anniversary of hismoment of military glory--often at the expense of Nora and Sara. DespiteCon's airs, Harford's snobbish father sees him for what he is and objectsto Sara and Simon's impending marriage (an objection Simon would readilydefy).This insult deeply offends Con, who storms off to Harford's houseintending to challenge him to a duel instead of staying out of Sara andSimon's way as a caring father would.

All three of the main characters(Con, Nora, and Sara) are quite memorable--Con for his bizarre delusions ofgrandeur, his insistence of living in his romaticized glorious past, andhis alternation of cruelty and contrition toward his family (to say nothingof what happens to him at the end of the play, which I won't reveal); Norafor her moving proud love for Con despite his reprehensible treatment ofher; and Sara for her impressive stands against her father and her devotionto Simon.There were times, though, when the characters demonstrated suchextreme behavior that I had a hard time suspending my disbelief, which isthe only reason I'm not giving the play five stars.Con is very oftencontrite for his behavior toward his family, which appears to have beengoing on for decades, yet in all that time it doesn't seem to have occurredto him that maybe he ought to modify or at least try to suppress hishostility to Nora and Sara.Sara, meanwhile, issues all sorts ofcondemnations of how Con treats Nora, all of which he deserves, but onewould think that after a certain amount of time she would realize thatshe's wasting her breath.However, even if their actions are a bitunbelievable at times, all three characters are developed quite movingly.

While all of the play was quite gripping, the last half of the finalact was for me at least as cathartic as anything else in the dozen or soO'Neill plays I've read.A Touch of the Poet, having been written aroundthe same time as The Iceman Cometh, Long Day's Journey, and A Moon for theMisbegotten, tends to be overshadowed by those works, but it really is anexcellent play that deserves vastly more attention than it gets. ... Read more

Product Description
Eugene O’Neill wrote his plays for a theatre in which the playwright would take a central position. He presented himself as a controlling personality both in the texts—in the form of ample stage directions—and in performances based on these texts. His plays address several audiences-reader, spectator, and production team-and scripts were often different from the published versions. This study examines O’Neill’s multiple roles as a writer for many audiences.

After a description of O’Neill’s working conditions and the multiple audiences of the plays, this study examines the various formal aspects of the plays: titles, settings in time and place, names and addresses, language, and connections and allusions to other works. An examination of the plays follows, with particular emphasis on Bound East for Cardiff, Long Day’s Journey Into Night, and A Touch of the Poet. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Provincetown as a Stage: P'Town, the P'town Players....
Just received Leona Rust Egan's informative book.

She brings out so many facts in detail about P'Town

Book in excellent shape! We visited P'Town some years
ago while staying at our Time Share.

Met Leona at her shop, The Ironmongers, and hubbie
took a photo of her in front of the shop.

Great visit. Rang Norman Mailer's doorbell and his
wife invited us inside as we got his autograph.

Looked into the A-House and met Angel Cabral who in-
vited us in for a drink.

So many interesting people not only on the Cape, but
mostly at Provincetown. ... Read more

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Author Bogard, internationally recognized scholar of O'Neill, recounts the life of the Nobel Prize-winning playwright, who wrote his most enduring works at Tao House, his Contra Costra County, California, retreat. Features rare historical photographs from Yale University. ... Read more

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The First Man is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Eugene O'Neill is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of Eugene O'Neill then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

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Collection of five "lost" early Eugene O'Neill plays, written between 1913 and 1915. ... Read more