Another Part of a Long Story: Literary Traces of Eugene O'Neill and Agnes Boulton

Chronology

Agnes Boulton, date unknown. Photographed by Nickolas Muray © Nickolas Muray Photo Archives. Louis Sheaffer—-Eugene O’Neill Collection, Connecticut College. Used by permission. another part of a long story Literary Traces of Eugene O’Neill and Agnes Boulton William Davies King the university of michigan press Ann Arbor Copyright © by the University of Michigan 2010 All rights reserved Published in the United States of America by The University of Michigan Press Manufactured in the United States of America c Printed on acid-free paper 2013 2012 2011 2010 4 3 2 1 No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher. A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data King, W. D. (W. Davies) Another part of a long story : literary traces of Eugene O’Neill and Agnes Boulton / William Davies King. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-472-11717-8 (cloth : acid-free paper) 1. O’Neill, Eugene, 1888–1953. 2. Boulton, Agnes, 1893–1968. 3. Dramatists, American—20th century—Biography. I. Title. PS3529.N5Z6776 2010 812’.52—dc22 [B] 2009047781 ISBN13 978-0-472-11717-8 (cloth) ISBN13 978-0-472-02705-7 (electronic) for Wendy “You know my gratitude. And my love!” acknowledgments Still another part of Another Part of a Long Story is the long story of how this book came to be written and the many, many people who gave help along the way. I’d like to begin by thanking Harold Owen, the English instructor who assigned Long Day’s Journey into Night when I was a freshman at Phillips Academy. I also thank Chris Kirkland, who nurtured my early fascination with O’Neill in the classroom, and the Andover and Abbot classmates who tolerated my obsession with him in the Drama Lab. (“I got to get the ‘ile!”) I took up my interest in Agnes Boulton in 1988 when I was working on a small historical project concerning O’Neill at the Huntington Library and soon found myself reading the O’Neill-Boulton correspondence at the Harvard Theatre Collection, with the assistance of its curator, Jeanne Newlin. Thereafter, of course, I found myself at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University, where Donald Gallup, Curator of the Yale Collection of American Literature, helped me to see what a challenging topic I had chosen, and he set a fine example of how to meet its difficulties. Patricia C. Willis, who followed in Gallup’s position at Yale, has also been extremely helpful over these years. The late Howard C. Gotlieb, Director of Special Collections at the Mugar Memorial Library, Boston University, gave me much help with the Max Wylie Papers. I also want to thank Diane Schinnerer and the Eugene O’Neill Foundation at Tao House, which houses the Travis Bogard Collection. Special mention must be made of Brian Rogers, Laurie Deredita, and Benjamin Panciera, who have assisted me immensely with the Louis Sheaffer–Eugene O’Neill Collection at Connecticut College. They serve the legacy of Sheaffer well. I am also greatly indebted to that prodigious collector of all things O’Neill, Dr. Harley J. Hammerman, who has been a true friend in all our interactions, not least in his sponsorship of eOneill.com, which continues to show how this increasingly remote topic stays current with our times. That website now features a new edition of Agnes Boulton’s Part of a Long Story and Selected Stories of Agnes Boulton, both “books” edited by me and welcomed by him. Other institutions that have served as homes away from home for this project include the libraries at Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Princeton University, the University of California at Los Angeles, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Virginia. I would probably never have taken up this project if the Library of Congress had not preserved and presented to me the engrossing world of early pulp magazines. I scanned (with my eyes) countless bound volumes and reels of microfilm, all courteously supplied to me by the dedicated library staff, and...