Forty Years of O'Neill Criticism: A Selected Bibliography

FORTY YEARS OF O'NEILL CRITICISM: A Selected Bibliography No AMERICAN DRAMATIST has been the object of so much critical attention as has Eugene O'Neill. The following Checklist is in no sense an attempt to encompass the entire canon of this criticism. It is rather a selected compilation which seeks to present the most significant articles, books, and book sections written about O'Neill between 1920 and 1960. Of necessity, certain areas have been neglected in this list. Foreign language criticism has not been included because of the large percentage of foreign books and periodicals which are unavailable in this country and also because there is so much material of this sort that the process of selection would have involved a completely separate and formidable job of research. In addition, most reviews of O'Neill plays have not been included. Occasionally, however, reviews have been listed in the articles section where they were considered to be both reviews and general considerations of O'Neill's work. Such items are marked "Article-Review." Reviews which have been reprinted in books have been included in the books section with, in most cases, appropriate annotations denoting them as reprinted reviews and indicating the play under consideration. Part 1. Books AGATE, JAMES. Red Letter Nights. London: Jonathan Cape, 1944. Pp. 347-360. (Reviews of Anna Christie, Strange Interlude, Afourning Becomes Electra, and Desire Under the Elms. ) AIKEN, CONRAD P. A Reviewe1"s ABC. New York: Meridian Books, 1958. "Eugene O'Neill," pp. 315-318. (Review of Strange Interlude. ) ANDERSON, JOHN. The American Theatre and The Motion Picture in America, by Rene Fulop-Miller. New York: Dial Press, 1938. Pp.67-74. ATKINSON, JUSTIN BROOKS. Broadway Scrapbook. New York: Theatre Arts,1947. "The Iceman Cometh," pp.241-246. (Review of The Iceman Cometh.) BELLINGER, MARTHA FLETCHER. A Short History of the Drama. New York: Henry Holt, 1927. Pp.360-36l. 196 1961 FORTY YEARS OF O'NEILL CRITICISM 197 BENTLEY, ERIc. The Dramatic Event. New York: Horizon Press, 1954. "Eugene O'Neill's Pieta," pp.30-33. (Review of A Moon for the Misbegotten.) - - . The Playwright as Thinker. New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1946. Pp. 67-69; 318-322. (Primarily concerned with Mourning Becomes Electra. ) BLANKENSHIP, RUSSELL. American Literature as an Expression of the National Mind. New York: Henry Holt, 1931. "Eugene O'Neill," pp.710-717. BLOCK, ANITA. The Changing World in Plays and Theatre. Boston: Little, Brown, 1939. Pp.137-193. BOULTON, AGNES. PART OF A LONG STORY. New York: Doubleday, 1955. (O'Neill's second wife's account of the early years of their marriage, in Provincetown and Greenwich Village. ) BOWEN, CROSWELL, with the assistance of Shane O'Neill. THE CURSE OF THE MISBEGOTTEN: A TALE OF THE HOUSE OF O'NEILL. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1959. (A detailed biographical study. ) BOYD, ERNEST. Portraits, Real and Imaginary. New York: George H. Doran, 1924. "Eugene O'Neill," pp. 175-17S. BOYNTON, PERCY H. Some Contempomry Americans. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1924. "The Drift of the Drama," pp. 211-214. BROOKS, CLEANTH, AND ROBERT B. HEILMAN. Understanding Drama. New York: Henry Holt, 1945. "Appendix A," pp. 2-5. (A comparison of Mourning Becomes Electra and The Oresteia.) BROOKS, VAN WYCK. The Confident Years: 1885-1915. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1952. "Eugene O'Neill: Harlem," pp. 539-553. BROWN, JOHN MASON. Letters From Greenroom Ghosts. New York: Viking, 1934. "Christopher Marlowe to Eugene O'Neill," pp. 69-116. - - . Seeing More Things. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1945. "Moaning at the Bar," pp. 257-265. (Review of The Iceman Cometh.) - - . Seeing Things. New York: Whittlesey House, 1946. Pp. 145146 ; 217-21S. -.-. Two on the Aisle. New York: W. W. Norton, 1935. "Mr. O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra," pp. 136-142. (Review of Mourning Becomes Electra.) - - . Upstage: The American Theatre in PeljOl'mance. New York: W. W. Norton, 1930. "Eugene O'Neill," pp. 60-77. BUCK, PHILO M., JR., JOHN GASSNER, AND H. S. ALBERSON. A Treasury of 198 MODERN DRAMA September the Theatre, Ibsen to Odets. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1940. "Eugene O'Neill," by John Gassner, pp, 245-248. CARGILL, OSCAR. Intellectual America: Ideas on the March. New York: Macmillan, 1941. "The Primitivists...