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A DESCRIPTION OF THE CORNELL COLLECTION OF EUGENE O'NEILL'S LETTERS TO GEORGE JEAN NATHAN* THIS IS THE FIRST OF A TWO-PART ARTICLE on the Cornell Collection of the letters written by Eugene O'Neill to George Jean Nathan over three decades. In the next issue of Modern Drama I will describe and illustrate the content of the correspondence, which provides one of the most significant commentaries by any modern dramatist upon his own craftsmanship. George Jean Nathan graduated from Cornell in 1904. He bequeathed all the important letters addressed to him to his alma mater, which received them in 1958 shortly after his death. The Cornell Collection is reasonably complete, although it does not represent every letter O'Neill wrote to Nathan-Isaac Goldberg's The Theatre ot George Jean Nathan (New York, 1926) published one letter (about O'Neill's problem in changing the ending of Anna Christie in order to avoid the "happy-ever-after" implications) not included at Cornell (pp. 153-155); Goldberg quotes O'Neill's state· ment that he and Nathan corresponded years before their meeting (p. 77), though the Cornell Collection has only one of these letters; and a few of the Cornell letters allude to items missing in the collection itself (e.g., in item #113). O'Neill ordinarily dated his letters carefully, and he often typed them at the beginning of his correspondence with Nathan (perhaps out of a rather formal deference for the critic) and at the end (because of the inability to write clearly with his increasing hand tremor). Where the date is not clear on the letter but is conjecturable from biographical or internal evidence, I have put it in brackets with a question mark. I have also indicated the number and approximate size of the pages and the kind of spacing if typed (e.g., l~ typed ss = one and one-fourth regular-sized pages, typed in singe-space; % wr %-sized = three-fourth's of a page handwritten on paper approxi- *Permission to work with xeroxed copies of the 130 items of the O'Neill-Nathan Collection was given to me in a letter of June 5, 1968, from George H. Healey, Curator, Department of Rare Books of the Cornell University Library. Permission to quote from the letters was given to me in a letter dated October 3, 1969, from Donald C. Gallup, Curator, Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Library, Yale University. Mr. Gallup was representing Mrs. (Carlotta) Eugene O'Neill. For all O'Neill materials: © Carlotta Monterey O'Neill, 1970. 420 1972 O'NEILL'S LETTERS TO NATHAN 421 mately three-fourth's the standard size; Y2 typed ds = one-half a regular -sized page, typed in double-space). An asterisk following the item means that the letter is reprinted by Goldberg. 1. May 1st 1919: West Point Pleasant, N.J. .......... 1 typed ds* 2. Nov. 4, 1919: Provincetown, Mass............ 1 typed ss* 3. March 12, 1920: " . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 1 wr* 4. June 19, 1920: " ............ 1 typed ss* 5. June 20, 1920: " ......... lY2 typed ss* 6. Dec. 11, 1920: " .......... , 1 typed ds* 7. Feb. 1, 1921: " ........... 1 typed ss* S. Feb. 5, 1921: " . . . . . . . . .. % typed ss* 9. March 31, 1921: " ........... % typed ss 10. Jan. 2, 1922: [Letterhead:] Eugene O'Neill, Provincetown, Mass. ...................... I Y4 typed ss 11. May 7, 1923: [Letterhead:] Brook Farm, Ridgefield, Connecticut ........................ 1Ys wr 12. Thursday [? December, 1923]: [Letterhead:] Peaked Hill Bar, Provincetown, Mass. ............................. 1 wr* 13. Sunday [? December, 1923]: [Letterhead:] Brook Farm, Ridgefield, Connecticut .......................... 1 wr 14. March 26, '25: "Campsea," South Shore, Paget W., Bermuda ..................................... 1Y2 wr* 15. [? July, 1925]: [Marked through letterhead: Kenneth Macgowan, Robert Edmond Jones, Eugene O'Neill, Greenwich Village Theatre, Seventh Avenue and Fourth Street, New York City] 5 Mill Street, Nantucket, Mass. ..................... % wr, % sized 16. [? July, 1925]: 5 J\fill Street, Nantucket, Mass..... Y2 typed ds 17. October 31, 1925: [Letterhead:] Brook Farm, Ridgefield, Connecticut . . . . . . . . . . . .. Y2 typed ds, typed postscript ss IS. Dec. 30th [? 1925]: [Letterhead:] Brook Farm, Ridgefield, Connecticut .................... % typed ss 19. April 5th, 1926: [Letterhead:] "Bellevue," Paget East, Bermuda ................................. ~/z typed ds 20. April 17, '26: " ................ 2 wr* 21. May 1st 1926: " . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 1 wr 22. May 28 [? 1926]: " ........ 1 wr, Y2 sized* 23. Saturday [? August...

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