Selected Letters

by Eugene O'Neill, Jackson R. Bryer, Travis Bogard

“...essential to any understanding of...O'Neill if only because they demystify him.” –Arthur Miller, The New York Times Book Review

612 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1988

About the author

American playwright Eugene Gladstone O'Neill authored Mourning Becomes Electra in 1931 among his works; he won the Nobel Prize of 1936 for literature, and people awarded him his fourth Pulitzer Prize for Long Day's Journey into Night , produced in 1956.

He won his Nobel Prize "for the power, honesty and deep-felt emotions of his dramatic works, which embody an original concept of tragedy." More than any other dramatist, O'Neill introduced the dramatic realism that Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish playwright August Strindberg pioneered to Americans and first used true American vernacular in his speeches.

His plays involve characters, who, engaging in depraved behavior, inhabit the fringes of society, where they struggle to maintain their hopes and aspirations but ultimately slide into disillusionment and despair. O'Neill wrote Ah, Wilderness! , his only comedy: all his other plays involve some degree of tragedy and personal pessimism.

Reviews

[Scripturiently Swag The Dragon-Hearted]

Very sad. I'm not giving it a rating because it's the type of book you can't really rate. Would recommend it though.