More Stately Mansions

Fülszöveg

Hitherto unpublished, this three-act drama was to have been the fourth in O'Neill's monumental nine-play cycle, A Tale of Possessors Self-Dispossessed, devoted to the saga of an American family from Colonial times to the present day, and to the malevolent effect of possessions on their possessors. Only two plays were ever finished — the third play, A Touch of the Poet (published by Yale University Press in 1957), and its sequel, More Stately Mansions. It is set in Massachusetts between 1832 and 1841. The central characters — Simon Harford, the ambitious son of a wealthy Yankee family; his wife, Sara, the beautiful daughter of Con Melody in A Touch of the Poet; and Simon's enigmatic mother, Deborah — are enmeshed in a triangular struggle for dominance that perfectly embodies the somber central theme of the cycle.
The manuscript, at one time believed to have been destroyed by the author, is now among the papers of the O'Neill Collection at Yale. Karl Ragnar Gierow and Donald... Tovább

Fülszöveg

Hitherto unpublished, this three-act drama was to have been the fourth in O'Neill's monumental nine-play cycle, A Tale of Possessors Self-Dispossessed, devoted to the saga of an American family from Colonial times to the present day, and to the malevolent effect of possessions on their possessors. Only two plays were ever finished — the third play, A Touch of the Poet (published by Yale University Press in 1957), and its sequel, More Stately Mansions. It is set in Massachusetts between 1832 and 1841. The central characters — Simon Harford, the ambitious son of a wealthy Yankee family; his wife, Sara, the beautiful daughter of Con Melody in A Touch of the Poet; and Simon's enigmatic mother, Deborah — are enmeshed in a triangular struggle for dominance that perfectly embodies the somber central theme of the cycle.
The manuscript, at one time believed to have been destroyed by the author, is now among the papers of the O'Neill Collection at Yale. Karl Ragnar Gierow and Donald Gallup, curator of the O'Neill Collection, have orepared the manuscript for publication.
Facsimiles of six pencil sketches by O'Neill suggesting ^he settings for each scene are included. The cover photograph is by Carl Van Vechten.
"The reading of this play is a profound experience for the casual reader of drama and the student of O'Neill's plays in particular. gives new dimension to O'NeiU's stature as a great playwright."—St. Louis Post Dispatch.

Yale University Press, New Haven and London
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