If you've ever loved a dog, you will connect on many levels with this exquisite book! I also recommend "August Magic" and "Heart of the Savannah" by Veronica Anne Starbuck as great reading for dog lovers!

I was recently given this book by my sister-in-law after saying goodbye to my 14 year old corgi, Tommy. Tommy passed in my arms, and it has been very hard dealing with this loss. This book helped me realize the best way to deal with my pain was to celebrate his life rather than mourn his passing. This is the perfect book for anyone who has recently lost their old faithful pal. The book is short, but it is very moving. Be ready to cry.

A book so short yet so powerful and comforting.For all of us who have pets or lost them.

Excellent satire by O'Neill! According to some, this is the basis of all TV Sitcoms, including both the classics, such as 'The Brady Bunch' and 'Leave it to Beaver' and the rebellions against such 'happy' shows, such as The Simpsons and South Park. We have much to owe O'Neill - even though I interpert this play as a satire of society...

"Ah, Wilderness!" is the only comedy that Eugene O'Neill wrote and as such stands out as quite different from most of his work. It is the story of Richard Miller, a 17 year-old Swinburne- and Wilde-reading intellectual pretty obviously based on O'Neill's memory of himself as an adolescent. Richard is in love with Muriel McComber, a neighbor girl, but Muriel's father objects to the relationship and, after a heated exchange between Mr. McComber and Richard's father Nat, Nat half-heartedly tells Richard to stay away from Muriel, and Richard receives a note from Muriel to the effect that the relationship is over. Despondent, Richard lets his older brother's friend talk him into going to a bar to meet a girl, where Richard gets drunk and engages in some innocent flirtation with her, but does not allow the girl (who unsurprisingly is a prostitute) to take him upstairs. Meanwhile, Richard's parents are worried sick about him and are rather displeased when he comes home drunk, but upon realizing that he's learned his lesson, they let him off fairly easily the next day, and everything, including Richard's relationship with Muriel, works out well in the end.

This play really does have some funny moments (two that jump to mind are the drunken ramblings of Richard's Uncle Sid at the dinner table and the extremely awkward attempt by Nat to have a heart-to-heart talk with his son about sex), and the fact that O'Neill was able to write it reveals that he had a good deal more breadth as a playwright than one might think. It's a very charming portrait of a sort of simple small-town life that was, as O'Neill himself expressed it, how O'Neill would have liked his life to be. Particularly Richard's parents, though they do a couple of silly things for mild comedic effect, are fairly idealized in their treatment of Richard himself--stern when they think his behavior needs correcting but always understanding and supportive--leading one to believe that O'Neill was to an extent trying to paint a picture of how he wishes his parents had treated him (as opposed to how they did treat him, as described a few years later in Long Day's Journey into Night). In any case, O'Neill showed with this play that he was just as adept at depicting life in a happy family as he was at depicting more tragic situations, and in doing so he provided posterity with a very entertaining comedy.

Incidentally, in addition to this version, "Ah, Wilderness!" is available, along with "A Touch of the Poet," "Hughie," and "A Moon for the Misbegotten," in the Modern Library compilation "The Later Plays of Eugene O'Neill" (also sold by Amazon). That compilation is, at this writing, not much more expensive than this single-play volume and it ships sooner, so if you're also interested in one or more of the other plays in the Modern Library edition, it's probably a better buy.

Good, quick read by one of my favorite playwrights. Excellent story of a New England town on the Fourth of July in the early 1900's. Spectrum of characters demonstrates O'Neil's ability to approach the coming of age of a young man with lightheartedness not found in any of his other plays. Has very funny moments on paper that I would imagine are even better on the stage. It gives an excellent description of a time when life was simpler and young men and women learned life's hard lessons from first-hand experiences.

I enjoy this collection of plays from Mr Eugene O'Neill (1888-1953). He is considered the first dramatist from the US and is also the first to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. First, I must write that this edition from the LIBRARY OF AMERICA is beautiful. It has a sewn binding, flexible yet strong binding boards covered with a closely woven, rayon cloth and a ribbon bookmark attached to the spine. This volume covers the period 1932-43, marking Mr O'Neill's most well-known work. My favourites are A LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT and THE ICEMAN COMETH. I also enjoy the the Irish flavour of A TOUCH OF the POET. ALDJIN is auto-biographical, as is also A MOON FOR THE MISBEGOTTEN. ALDJIN benefits from an eye-witness perspective which makes the characters extremely poignant. I feel an eery shiver as I read the drama, knowing the playwright's life. Like his character Edmund, Mr O'Neill left Princeton after his first year; went to sea, searched for gold in South America and haunted the waterfront bars in Buenos Aires, Liverpool and New York. He drank heavily. The other characters reflect his life also. His father was a successful actor who played but one role, the Count of Monte Cristo, and never became a more serious actor. His mother used morphine and his older brother was an alchoholic. All three died between 1920-23. This play is such a vivid "photograph" it sometimes is painfull for me to read, but at the same time a great reward. If you are interested in dramatists from the US, or in gritty, realistic plays about characters on the the margins of society, this collection will be interesting to you.

This collection of work gives the reader O'Neill, America's greatest playwright, at his most powerful. The two earlier collections are likewise great, but this third one contains his two strongest works: "The Iceman Cometh" and "Long Day's Journey Into Night."

In "The Iceman Cometh," O'Neill creates a world of happy derelicts. They spend their nights and days in Harry Hope's saloon, living through today by drinking and believing in the "pipe dreams" of tomorrow. That is until Hickey comes to town. He forces them, for the first time, to look honestly at their lives. This dose of reality has devestating affects on the patrons of Harry's.

Also included is O'Neill's masterpiece, "Long Day's Journey Into Night." This play, not published or produced in his lifetime, painfully tells the story of his own dysfunctional family. The play's action is one calendar day, but O'Neill, through dialogue, takes the reader back to the origins of their problems. The emotions displayed, which include guilt, envy, pain, cynicism, and love, tears the family apart, while strangely holding them together. Even though the emotions run high, O'Neill does it without employing sentimentality. He is honest without becoming melodramatic. A rare accomplish in literature. A more emotionally rendering work would be hard to find.

These two works are not the only jems the collection contains. "A Moon for the Misbegotten," now running on Broadway, continues the story of his brother, Jamie, who appears in "Long Day's Journey . . ." "Ah, Wilderness!" is a fine coming of age story.

The others also bare the mark of O'Neill's genius. The stories, set in the first half of the twentieth century, are as true today as they were when written. They've persevered and have proven timeless. His characters live with the reader long after the work is finished. And many are well worth a second visit.

Long Day's Journey Into Night is O'Neill's autobiographical dichotomization of his dysfunctional family. I also happens to be one of the best plays ever written. One would not expect the author to be impartial toward his past or his family: he is either strongly libelous or fondly empathetic. What O'Neill accomplishes is a Golden Mean, it is written with so much integrity, so much compasion and with so much devastating truth that it becomes one of the most emotionally- challenging literary works one is ever likely to read. The four Tyrones' characterization is as broadly affecting as life itself: Jamie, a cynic ruined by dissipation; Mary, one of the best tragic heroines ever created; Edmund, O'Neill's tortured alter-ego; James, an epitomy of the Irish-American presence in US and their blind faith and peculiraly ambivalent optimism. The play is in four acts and it is brillintly crafted; it has all the urgency of a social outcry and all the emotional strength of an epic. O'Neill wrote," God grant me sympathy for the haunted Tyrones." He does sympathize with these people, of course, but he is also soberly realistic: his heroes will forever remain thwarted by the vicious circle of their multi-faceted inadequacy.

"Anna Christie," the play by the great U.S. writer Eugene O'Neill, won the Pulitzer Prize for the 1921-22 theater season. All these decades later, the play still packs an emotional punch. "Anna Christie" focuses on three characters: Anna, who has had a traumatic life in the United States; her father Chris, a Swedish merchant seaman; and Mat Burke, an Irish stoker who takes an interest in Anna. The play takes place in New York City and on Chris's barge.

"Anna Christie" is a compelling study of gender roles and expectations, ethnic conflict in the U.S., family ties and disruptions, the call of the seafaring life, and fatalism versus the embrace of free will. Particularly interesting is O'Neill's representation of various types of vernacular speech. Overall, a classic American play that deserves an ongoing reading audience.

Amazing!!! The characters were wonderfully acted out and the relationship between father and daughter was such a gripping story.

Mourning becomes electra is well known as a modernization of the Greek myth of the Oresteria. Perhaps the difference between Aeschylus and O'neill is to some degree a measure of the extent to which the weakening of the sanctions has weakend the emotions with they supported.

I'm writing a thesis regarding the tragic mode in works ranging from Aueschylus' Oresteia to Miller's Death of a Salesman, works that include O'Neil's Mourning Becomes Electra. In using this book as a reference I have been able to create a thesis that is both informed and interesting. Great book...

This is a tremendous source work, providing a sequential study of O'Neill's development as a dramatist. While not all of the plays are particularly successful, they reveal themes and settings that would provide the foundation for the later O'Neill masterworks. And there are many wonderful early dramas, such as the four S.S. Glencairn plays, his first broadway success "Beyond the Horizon," and the daring "Anna Christie," all of which tested and expanded the dramatic form in America. A wonderful collection!

This exquisite collection of Eugene O'Neill's later works is worth the beautifully bound edition from the Library of America. Including some of the most enduring examples of american playwrighting excellence and some little-known gems, this collection is a must-have for the serious theater fan, theater student and certainly theatrical producers. Since last year's Tony award-winning revival of "The Iceman Cometh" and this year's "Moon for the Misbegotten" have been such successes in New York, O'Neill's most personal plays are suddenly current again. This volume edited by Travis Bogard is the perfection addition to any collection, when coupled with the equally stunning volume of O'Neill's earlier work "Eugene O'Neill:Complete Plays 1913-1920."

I read "Long Day's Journey into Night" as a prelude to seeing the current Broadway production, starring Vanessa Redgrave and Brian Dennehy (and I am now really looking forward to seeing the stage production!) and I purchased this downloadable guide for further literary depth. It certainly provided me with that!

I would recommend this guide to students of all ages. I graduated from college 14 years ago and I still found the biographical information, plot summary, character descriptions, themes, style, historical content, critical overview and criticisms enlightening.

I saw the play on Broadway back in May 2000. If Eugene O'Neill's ghost were walking the aisles of the theater that night he would be proud of the performance that night. The play is timeless as it is cherished as the best love story created. The actors were superb in their portrayal of O'Neill's character. Gabriel Byrne was excellent in his role as James Tyrone the sometimes actor, full time drunken landlord of Phil Hogan (played by Roy Dotrice) and Josie Hogan (played by Cherry Jones). Cherry Jones' character Josie brought out a beautiful heart of a hulking frame of a woman with a reputation of being ornery like her father, who longs for the man she loves, James Tyrone. Every moment is the ebb tide of emotion stirring in the hearts of the two misbegotten crossed lovers. Even to the very end, of the misfortunate disappointment it will stop your heart and make you take a deeper breath again.

I loved this play the first second i saw it on broadway. it gave me vibrations all over my body every time Cherry Jones said a line. It was an amazing story of true love and to give yourself over to someyone. And talking to Hope Davis made me cry after, because she said to me "I've never seen love so strong." I do hope you give Eugene O'Neill a chance and buy this amazing play. And try to see any production of his work being broadway or smaller productions. Thank you!

Sometimes plays are rediscovered after what seems to be utter failure, a valuable insight for all, I think. O'Neill's A Moon for the Misbegotten was rejected by pre-Broadway audiences in Michigan and Ohio in the 1940s, effectively preventing the play from having a New York premiere during the author's lifetime. In each of the following two decades, attempts at New York productions failed. It took Jason Robards and Colleen Dewhurst to ignite the play for New York in the 1970s, under the direction of the legendary Jose Quintero.

O'Neill's playwriting career is oddly similar to that of Sam Shepard: He had an early series of realistic short plays, followed by a period of experiment, when he explored a variety of artistic impulses and writing styles. Eventually, he wrote a handful of plays, rooted in realism, sometimes autobiographical, which revealed, nevertheless, what he'd learned through experiment. In the best of these, The Iceman Cometh, Long Day's Journey into Night, and A Moon for the Misbegotten, O'Neill built vehicles of immense emotional power with psychologically rich characters and fairly organic plots.

MOON revolves around the Irish-American earth mother, Josie Hogan, a tall, rough-hewn woman, who promotes a course image of herself to cover a fragile and vulnerable interior. The other two "imposters" of the play are her father, Phil Hogan, and the landlord of their tired Connecticut farm, James Tyrone (based on O'Neill's brother), a third-rate Broadway actor, who has drunk his life away, chasing loose women and acting a fool. Nevertheless, Josie secretly harbors feelings for him. The play hinges on what happens when her father, through a clever, inebriated deception, convinces her to blackmail Tyrone into selling them the farm rather than selling it to their rich, obnoxious neighbor (for a much higher price). The subterfuge leads to one of the most poignant love scenes in American dramatic literature, as Josie and Jim Tyrone discover that they know and understand the person beneath the mask better than they each thought, and it's still not enough to unite them.

O'Neill's original title for the play was The Moon Bore Twins. We can be grateful for the change, though the original title does carry a measure of insight with it, for Josie and Tyrone are, if not identical twins psychologically, at least inversions of the same chord-doomed to occupy separate, mutually exclusive worlds.

The play contains an amazing shift of tone from the first half to the last half. In act one and two we are treated to a rather comic display of Irish inflected patter between Josie, her father, and the rest of the five characters. In the last two acts, the tone becomes more serious and bittersweet, which may explain why it took so long for audiences to catch up with it. The play definitely catches the viewer or reader off guard ... wishing that these two ne'er-do-wells could save each other from the future they have each envisioned. O'Neill's revised title says a lot about the play, for Moon is not as dark as Long Day's Journey, nor as demanding as Iceman, but it is O'Neill deploying all his gifts as a dramatist, writing fully realized roles containing emotional power, wit, humor, and pathos. His language reflects people who are driven to speak to stay alive. No one is writing like this today, except perhaps August Wilson.