Eugene O'Neill's Last Plays

Separating Art from Autobiography

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by Doris Alexander

University of Georgia Press

Due/Published May 2005, 264 pages, cloth

ISBN 0820327093

This study draws on new and unprecedented research concerning the lives of Eugene O¹Neill, his family, and his circle. It corrects and expands the biographical record on O¹Neill, sharpens our understanding of his art, and distinguishes the man and his life more clearly than ever from the creations that were inspired by, and drew on, that life.

In his final creative years, 1939 to 1943, O¹Neill wrote The Iceman Cometh, Long Day¹s Journey into Night, and A Moon for the Misbegotten. Because these plays are so intense, intimate, and evocative of the friends and family members who influenced O¹Neill¹s artistic development, biographers and critics have long‹and mistakenly‹regarded them as accurate sources for insights into the playwright¹s early years.

Drawing upon interviews and a staggering amount of archival research into multiple generations of the O¹Neill family, Alexander sets the historical record straight by documenting the actual people and situations on which characters and scenes in O¹Neill¹s last plays are based. Included in her study are such topics as the playwright¹s attempted suicide, his tuberculosis, and his relationship with his parents. By revealing the distinctions between O¹Neill¹s life and his art, Alexander¹s findings make possible greater insight into the artistry that shaped these final plays and brought them to life.