Call Number:

C0281

Repository:

Princeton University Library: Manuscripts Division

Extent:

• 1 box
• 0.45 linear feet

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Eugene O'Neill Plays, Box and Folder Number; Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

Date:

1913-1993 (inclusive) and 1913-1944 (bulk)

Creator:

Princeton University. Library. Special Collections and O'Neill, Eugene (1888-1953)

Form:

Correspondence -- 20th century, Drama. -- 20th century, First drafts. -- 20th century, and photographs -- 20th century.

Abstract:

Eugene O'Neill, the celebrated American playwright, was a director of the Provincetown Players and a founder of the Theatre Guild. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Strange Interlude (1928) and, posthumously, for Long Day's Journey Into Night (1956). The collection consists of fifteen manuscripts of O'Neill, most of which are first drafts of plays and include preliminary notes.

Eugene O'Neill was an American playwright and Nobel Prize winner. Suspended from Princeton University, he spent a number of years at sea. O'Neill's first published play, Beyond the Horizon, opened on Broadway in 1920 to great acclaim, and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. His best-known plays include Anna Christie (Pulitzer Prize 1922), Desire Under the Elms (1924), Strange Interlude (Pulitzer Prize 1928), Mourning Becomes Electra (1931), and Long Day's Journey into Night (Pulitzer Prize, 1957).

The collection contains fifteen manuscripts of O'Neill, most of which are first drafts of plays and include preliminary notes. Included is The Web (originally entitled The Cough), the first play written by O'Neill. He notes on the title page of the manuscript that, although he wrote skits for the stage prior to 1913, it was not until that year that he wrote The Web, "the first play I ever wrote." Also included is the original manuscript for "Tomorrow," the only short story by O'Neill ever to be published during his lifetime.

A small addition to the collection includes correspondence, photographs, and printed material of O'Neill. There is correspondence with William M. Agar; Francesco Bianco; Princeton University Librarian (1940-1952) and professor of history, Julian P. Boyd; there is correspondence with Mark Van Doren of the War Bond Committee related to some of O'Neill's original scripts, and to the War Bond Campaign; and there is one letter to Earle V. Rodgers.