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The Tempering of Eugene O'Neill

Alexander, Doris
New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1962
First edition, with dust jacket

 

This important biography covers O'Neill's life and career from the beginnings to the award of the first Pulitzer Prize for Anna Christie.  Opening with several chapters devoted to O'Neill's parents and brother, the book proceeds through a discussion of life in Greenwich Village and Provincetown, together with important consideration of those individuals who most influenced him, and concludes with marriage to Agnes Boulton and the initial financial and critical rewards of early successes.  Covering the same general time span as Sheaffer's later O'Neill: Son and Playwright, Miss Alexander's volume treats this part of O'Neill's life as the process of development and eventual tempering of the artist and his talents.  There is considerable involvement with the major personal and experiential influences, together with the rebellion and despair so constantly evident in O'Neill's life and plays.  A significant contribution to O'Neill scholarship.Miller

 

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