Search Type
  • All
  • Subject
  • Title
  • Author
  • Publisher
  • Series Title
Search Title

Download

Early Plays

Early Plays( )
Author: O'Neill, Eugene
Introduction by: Richards, Jeffrey H.
ISBN:978-0-14-118670-2
Publication Date:Aug 2001
Publisher:Penguin Publishing Group
Imprint:Penguin Classics
Book Format:Paperback
List Price:USD $24.00
Book Description:

A selection of early work--including two Pulitzer Prize-winning plays--from Eugene O'Neill, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature  A Penguin Classic Included in this volume are seven one-act plays (The Moon of the Caribbees, Bound East for Cardiff, In the Zone, The Long Voyage Home, Ile, Where the Cross Is Made, and The Rope), and five full-length plays (Beyond the Horizon, The...
More Description

Book Details
Pages:448
Detailed Subjects: Drama / American / General
Physical Dimensions (W X L X H):5.1 x 7.66 x 0.9 Inches
Book Weight:0.712 Pounds
Author Biography
O'Neill, Eugene (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 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 gran



Featured Books

The Great Gatsby
Fitzgerald, F. Scott
Hardback: $20.00
The Book of Love
Link, Kelly
Hardback: $31.00
Come and Get It
Reid, Kiley
Hardback: $29.00

Rate this title:

Select your rating below then click 'submit'.






I do not wish to rate this title.