Summary
Overview
O'Neill, Eugene, 1888-1953.
Eugene O'Neill Collection
1913-1993 (mostly 1913-1944)
Princeton University. Library. Dept. of Rare Books and Special Collections
Manuscripts Division
One Washington Road
Princeton, New Jersey 08544 USA
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.
Description
Description
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.
Collection Creator
Biography
Eugene O'Neill, famed playwright, was born on October 16, 1888, in New York City. O'Neill had a troubled youth, always traveling with his movie-star father and morphine-addicted mother. One of his brothers also died during childhood. O'Neill also briefly attended Princeton University for two years before being asked to leave. From 1909 to 1912, O'Neill was a wanderer, and it was during this time that he encountered many of the settings for his later plays. Towards the end of this journey, he sank into alcoholism and even attempted suicide. The alcohol compromised his health and in 1912 O'Neill went to the Gaylord Farm Sanatorium for tuberculosis. After the disease went into remission, O'Neill attended Harvard for a year to study creative writing. Four years later his first fully produced play, Beyond the Horizon, won a Pulitzer Prize. This began an extremely productive, though varyingly successful, era in O'Neill's life. In 1921 he won a second Pulitzer Prize for Anna Christie. Shortly thereafter, O'Neill's mother died, sending him back into alcoholism. After recovering from this, O'Neill started managing a theater in 1923. In 1928 he won a third Pulitzer Prize for Strange Interlude. Eight years later, while visiting a friend, O'Neill discovered that he had won the Nobel Prize for literature. The same year he moved to the west coast with his family, and while he was there wrote one of his best known works, The Iceman Cometh. In 1945 he moved back east. He passed away on November 27, 1953. Four years later his Long Day's Journey into the Night won a Pulitzer Prize.
Collection History
Processing Information
This collection was processed in 2002. Finding aid written in 2002.
Biography written by Alyxandra Cullen, '09.
Access and Use
Access Restrictions
Collection is open for research use.
Use Restrictions
Single photocopies may be made for research purposes. No further photoduplication of copies of material in the collection can be made when Princeton University Library does not own the original. Permission to publish material from the collection must be requested from the Associate University Librarian for Rare Books and Special Collections. The library has no information on the status of literary rights in the collection and researchers are responsible for determining any questions of copyright.
Preferred Citation
Eugene O'Neill Collection; 1913-1993 (mostly 1913-1944), Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library.
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