Editor's Foreword

A century on from that fateful year, 1912, when Eugene O'Neill exorcised at least some of his demons and came out ready to write plays, important archival discoveries are still being made. They help us rewrite O'Neill's history, as we should always be ready to do. Most remarkable is that rediscovered early "late play" (or late "early play"), Exorcism, from 1920, which comes back to life after a long period of unconsciousness, just like its main character. A decade later, Gene began the custom of giving his wife Carlotta one of his manuscripts as a Christmas present, though evidence suggests she did not always relish this sort of gift (the first was a draft of Dynamo). Maybe it is fitting that the script of Exorcism was somehow preserved by his previous wife, Agnes Boulton, then given as a Christmas present to her friend Philip Yordan. The endpapers of the new edition reproduce the envelope in which she delivered the gift, and it is decorated with several Christmas stickers, offering "Season's Greetings." After all, it is a play for the darkest time of the year, a stunted parody of A Christmas Carol. O'Neillians at the most recent American Literature Association conference opened new scholarly perspectives on that play, and our next issue will feature a section devoted to the emerging discussion. For the time being, we have Rob Dowling's short notice of the new edition; he'll have more to say anon.

Meanwhile, in this issue, we open other gift packages, documents we can use and enjoy. That prodigious collector Michael Morrison uncovers astonishing forgotten episodes in the prehistory of The Emperor Jones. Richard Eaton and Madeline Smith offer the latest nuggets from their investigation of the early history of Carlotta, including correspondence with her ex-husband and pictures from her first honeymoon, and I introduce a segment of Carlotta's 1928-29 diary, in which she tells the story of a disastrous voyage to Asia with Gene, which was also a kind of honeymoon—her fourth, his third. Drew Eisenhauer brings us documents from yet another important woman in O'Neill's life, Louise Bryant, except here we have a play that dates back to a period before she had ever met O'Neill. The Game ultimately debuted alongside O'Neill's first play ever to be staged, Bound East for Cardiff, and, as Eisenhauer shows, it demonstrated the modernist and experimental values of the Provincetown Players perhaps better than any other production from the early years. Others have pondered this event, but Eisenhauer delivers the most substantive and insightful inquiry into Bryant's historically significant work.

Finally, this issue introduces what I hope will become a regular feature in these pages. Laurin Porter responded wonderfully to my invitation to write a memoir piece on the topic of "O'Neill and I," though she came up with a better title for her personal essay. I invite others to submit something in this vein—a reminiscence of some event or series of events that led you, the writer, to find personal meaning in the writings and life of O'Neill. Memoir makes experience meaningful, as O'Neill in his own way shows. You too?