Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953)
Author of Long Day's Journey into Night
About the Author
Eugene O'Neill was born in New York City on October 16, 1888, the son of popular actors James O'Neill and Ellen Quinlan. As a young child, he frequently went on tour with his father and later attended a Catholic boarding school and a private preparatory school. He entered Princeton University but show more stayed for only a year. He took a variety of jobs, including prospecting for gold, shipping out as a merchant sailor, joining his father on the stage, and writing for newspapers. In 1912, he was hospitalized for tuberculosis and emotional exhaustion. While recovering, he read a great deal of dramatic literature and, after his release from the sanitarium, began writing plays. O'Neill got his theatrical start with a group known as the Provincetown Players, a company of actors, writers, and other theatrical newcomers, many of whom went on to achieve commercial and critical success. His first plays were one-act works for this group, works that combined realism with experimental forms. O'Neill's first commercial successes, Beyond the Horizon (1920) and Anna Christie (1921) were traditional realistic plays. Anna Christie is still frequently performed. It is the story of a young woman, Anna, whose hard life has led her to become a prostitute. Anna comes to live with her long-lost father, who is unaware of her past, and she falls in love with a sailor, who is also unaware. When Anna finds the two men fighting over her as though she were property, she is so angry and disgusted that she insists on telling them the truth. The man she loves rejects her at first, but then later returns to marry her. Soon O'Neill began to experiment more, and over the next 12 years used a wide variety of unusual techniques, settings, and dramatic devices. It is no exaggeration to say that, virtually on his own, O'Neill created a tradition of serious American theater. His influence on the playwrights who followed him has been enormous, and much of what is taken today for granted in modern American theater originated with O'Neill. A major legacy has been the nine plays he wrote between 1924 and 1931, tragedies that made heavy use of the new Freudian psychology just coming into fashion. His one comedy, Ah, Wilderness (1933), was the basis for the musical comedy, Oklahoma!, itself a groundbreaking event in American theater. O'Neill later began to write the intense, brooding, and highly autobiographical plays that are now considered to his best work. The Iceman Cometh (1946) is set in a bar in Manhattan's Bowery, or skid-row district. In the course of the play, a group of apparently happy men are forced to recognize the true emptiness of their lives. In A Long Day's Journey into Night (1956), O'Neill examines his own family and their tormented lives, a subject he continues in A Moon for the Misbegotten (1957). O'Neill's work was highly honored. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1936 and Pulitzer Prizes for Anna Christie, Beyond the Horizon, Strange Interlude (1928), and A Long Day's Journey Into Night, which also received the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. O'Neill died in Room 401 of the Sheraton Hotel on Bay State Road in Boston, on November 27, 1953, at the age of 65. He was also born in a hotel room in Times Square, NYC. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit:
Courtesy of the NYPL Digital Gallery
(image use requires permission from the New York Public Library)
Courtesy of the NYPL Digital Gallery
(image use requires permission from the New York Public Library)
Series
Works by Eugene O'Neill
Four Plays by Eugene O'Neill: Anna Christie; The Hairy Ape; The Emperor Jones; Beyond the Horizon (1998) 213 copies
Ah, wilderness! : The hairy ape ; All God's chillun got wings ; The emperor Jones ; Desire under the elms (1960) 25 copies
Ah, wilderness! And two other plays: All God's chillun got wings, and Beyond the horizon (1964) 24 copies
The Plays of Eugene O'Neill VOLUME 1: Strange Interlude, Desire Under the Elms, Lazarus Laughed, The Fountain, The… (1948) 20 copies
The Emperor Jones with a Study Guide for the Screen Version of the Play (Students' Edition) (Appleton Modern… (1934) 14 copies
The Unfinished Plays: Notes for the Visit of Malatesta, the Last Conquest, Blind Alley Guy (1988) 8 copies
Ile 7 copies
Four Plays: Strange Interlude, Mourning Becomes Electra, A Moon for the Misbegotten, A Touch of the Poet (1978) 7 copies
Anna Christie / Beyond the Horizon / Emperor Jones / The Hairy Ape / Days Without End (2004) 5 copies
The Plays of Eugene O'Neill VOLUME 1 3 copies
Teatro escogido 3 copies
Le opere: La luna dei Caraibi, Il lungo viaggio di ritorno, L'imperatore Jones, Anna Christie, Strano interludio, Il… (1978) 3 copies
Three American Plays 3 copies
Teatro 3 copies
Complete Works of Eugene O'Neill vol I}signed by O'Neill Ltd ed 1163/2000 vol I only of a 2 vik set (1924) 3 copies
Selected Plays Of Eugene O'Neill 3 copies
The plays of Eugene O'Neill 1 2 copies
Plays 2 copies
Nine Plays By Eugene O'neil 2 copies
The Long Voyage Home, Seven Plays Of The Sea (1946) Random House Hardcover Eugene O'Neill (1946) 2 copies
Abortion 2 copies
Seven contemporary plays 2 copies
Ah, Wilderness and Other Plays 2 copies
Dramen, Fast ein Poet, Trauer muß Elektra tragen, Eines langen Tages Reise in die Nacht (1960) 2 copies
I tjocka på Atlanten 2 copies
The Hairy Ape, and other plays 2 copies
Mattia Pascal und Einer, keiner, hunderttausend - Pirandello, 1934/ Meisterdramen - O'Neill, 1936/ Jean Barois -… (1984) 1 copy
Eugene O'Neill: Nine Plays 1 copy
O'Neill drámák 1. 1 copy
Quatro Peças - - Volume 35 1 copy
Dias sem fim 1 copy
Teatr 1 copy
Teatro escogido ... 1 copy
LOST PLAYS OF EUGENE O'NEILL 1 copy
سبع مسرحيات 1 copy
Ah, wilderness!: And two other plays: All God's chillun got wings, and Beyond the horizon (The Modern library,… (1955) 1 copy
De l'Huile, pièce en 1 acte d'O'Neill. (Coll Education et Théâtre), N° 37 ; Théâtre de répertoire 1 copy
Lang dags ferd mot natt 1 copy
Desejo Sob os Ulmeiros 1 copy
Trauer muss Elektra tragen 1 copy
The days of Eugene O'Neil 1 copy
Coup de théâtre 1 copy
Los Demonios 1 copy
Ah, Wilderness 1 copy
5 plays 1 copy
Electra Enlutada 1 copy
O'Neill drámák 2. 1 copy
Teatro Volume primo 1 copy
Olje / Ile 1 copy
Desire Under The Elms 1 copy
American Dream 1 copy
Complete Plays: 1920-1931 1 copy
The Iceman Cometh 1 copy
Théâtre choisi 1 copy
Più grandi dimore 1 copy
Fermenti 1 copy
EUGENE O'NEILL PLAYS (4): Moon for the Misbegotten, The Iceman Cometh, A Touch of the Poet, Long Day's… (1973) 1 copy
Oltre l'orizzonte 1 copy
Plays 1 copy
Nueve dramas; Vol. I 1 copy
Fog 1 copy
The Dreamy Kid 1 copy
Collected Plays 1 copy
Complete Works Vol. 2 1 copy
VAARAVYÖHYKKEESSÄ 1 copy
TRAANIA 1 copy
Homecoming 1 copy
Opere 1 copy
Amerikanisches Theater 1 copy
Servitude 1 copy
A Wife For A Life 1 copy
Tocht naar het duister 1 copy
Le opere 1 copy
Kariibide kuu : [näidendid] 1 copy
عشر مسرحيات مفقودة 1 copy
Gold; a play in four acts 1 copy
Il castoro 1 copy
Dvi amerikiečių pjesės 1 copy
Négy dráma 1 copy
Experimental O'Neill: The Hairy Ape, The Emperor Jones, and The S.S. Glencairn One-Act Plays (2016) 1 copy
Antes del desayuno 1 copy
Quatro peças 1 copy
Pod karribbským měsícem 1 copy
Associated Works
Playwrights on Playwriting: The Meaning and Making of Modern Drama from Ibsen to Ionesco (1960) — Contributor — 107 copies
Twenty Five Best Plays of the Modern American Theatre: Early Series (1949) — Contributor — 24 copies
Oogst der tijden : keur uit de werken van schrijvers en dichters aller volken en eeuwen (1940) — Contributor — 10 copies
Pulitzer Prize Winning Works Collection: One of Ours, His Family, Miss Lulu Bett, Cornhuskers, Anna Christie, Alice… (2013) 4 copies
The American Spectator : A Literary Newspaper, Vol. 1 No. 1 (November, 1932) — Editor — 3 copies
50 Best Plays of the American Theatre, Volume 1 — Contributor — 2 copies
The American Spectator : A Literary Newspaper, Vol. 1 No. 5 — Editor — 1 copy
Teatru American Contemporan vol. 1 — Contributor — 1 copy
The American Spectator : A Literary Newspaper, Vol. 1 No. 4 — Editor — 1 copy
The American Spectator : A Literary Newspaper, Vol. 1 No. 7 — Editor — 1 copy
The American Spectator : A Literary Newspaper, Vol. 1 No. 3 — Editor — 1 copy
The American Spectator : A Literary Newspaper, Vol. 1 No. 6 — Editor — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- O'Neill, Eugene
- Legal name
- O'Neill, Eugene Gladstone
- Birthdate
- 1888-10-16
- Date of death
- 1953-11-27
- Burial location
- Forest Hills Cemetery, Jamaica Plain, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- New York, New York, USA
- Place of death
- Boston, Massachusetts, USA
- Cause of death
- cerebellar cortical atrophy, a rare form of brain deterioration
- Places of residence
- Monte Cristo Cottage, New London, Connecticut, USA
Château du Plessis, St. Antoine-du-Rocher, Indre-et-Loire, France
Casa Genotta, Sea Island, Georgia, USA
Tao House, Danville, California, USA - Education
- St. Aloysius Academy for Boys
Princeton University
Harvard University - Occupations
- playwright
poet
reporter
actor
assistant stage manager
prospector (show all 9)
sailor
secretary
editor - Relationships
- O'Neill, Eugene, Jr. (son)
O'Neill, Shane (son)
Boulton, Agnes (wife)
Bryant, Louise (girlfriend)
Baker, George Pierce (teacher)
Strindberg, August (friend) (show all 8)
Reed, John (friend)
Chaplin, Geraldine (grand daughter) - Organizations
- National Institute of Arts and Letters
The Lambs
Dramatists Guild
Authors League of America
Provincetown Players (co-manager)
New London Telegraph (reporter) (show all 8)
Marine Transport Workers Union of the Industrial Workers of the World
American Spectator (associate editor and contributor) - Awards and honors
- Nobel Prize (Literature ∙ 1936)
American Academy of Arts and Letters (1923)
American Philosophical Society (1935)
American Theater Hall of Fame (1972)
Gold Medal, National Institute of Arts and Letters (1923)
Pulitzer Prize (1920, 1922, 1928, 1957) (show all 14)
Tony Award (1957)
Irish Academy of Letters (1932)
National Historic Landmark (Monte Cristo Cottage)(1971)
Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site (Tao House)(1976)
Eugene O'Neill Theatre, New York (1959)
Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, Waterford, Connecticut (1964)
Litt.D., Yale University (1923)
United States Postal Service stamp (1967)
Members
Reviews
Eugene O'Neill: Complete Plays Vol. 3 1932-1943… by Eugene O'Neill
O'Neill's brilliance and his place as America's foremost playwright locks into place, if it hadn't already, with this third volume of plays from the last decade of his writing life. Three of the plays presented here (The Iceman Cometh, Long Day's Journey Into Night, and A Moon for the Misbegotten) are utter masterpieces, works of art so powerful that they rank among the great accomplishments in English letters. Two other plays (Ah, Wilderness! and A Touch of the Poet) are great plays. A third (More Stately Mansions) is the one great failure of O'Neill's career, I believe, an endless epic back-and-forth set of soulful arguments that could have been (and sometimes was) better played in an infinitely shorter play. But it's my belief that no American playwright has ever come within miles of capturing O'Neill's ability to see the pain at the heart of human beings and to encapsulate so perfectly the pity which the lost heart yearns for and requires.… (more)
It's good at first, but by Act 3 all the themes have been developed and the rest of the play is simply digging in further to the already-established ruts.
This might be a play that really suffers in the reading as opposed to the performance.
This might be a play that really suffers in the reading as opposed to the performance.
I don't know why I was surprised by the abject misery. Themes a little dated, but a good read.
I don't think I would have liked this play 20 years ago, but I really enjoyed it. The skill and ideas are amazing. I don't think the story was the greatest, but enough to keep me interested in what what going to happen. I can see why this work is so revered.
Lists
1940s (3)
Plays I Like (7)
1930s (1)
METAfiction (1)
Modernism (1)
discontinued (1)
Awards
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Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 312
- Also by
- 57
- Members
- 11,541
- Popularity
- #2,038
- Rating
- 3.8
- Reviews
- 113
- ISBNs
- 432
- Languages
- 16
- Favorited
- 24
- Touchstones
- 229
