Carlotta Monterey O’Neill’s “Memorial for Gene”: Releasing Long Day’s Journey Into Night

Carlotta Monterey O’Neill’s decision to release Long Day’s Journey Into Night in 1956, first for publication by Yale University Press and later for production by the Royal Swedish Theatre seemed to defy the wish of her late husband Eugene O’Neill (1888–1953), who had called for the play to be withheld until twenty-five years after his death. Her diaries from 1953 to 1957 show that a variety of circumstances led to her decision, including shifting loyalties, old scores settled, and new thinking about how best to use this play of autobiographical reminiscence as an effective memorial for the Nobel Prize–winning playwright. This article is a preface to the excerpted diaries, which follow.