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Eugene O'Neill was born in a
Broadway hotel room on October 16, 1888 and died in a Boston
hotel room on November 27, 1953. The sixty-five year
journey in between was often turbulent, often tragic, and
always unconventional. But out of the turmoil came
insight, sensitivity, and genius -- the twisted road leading
to four Pulitzer Prizes, and recognition with
the 1936 Nobel Prize in
Literature as America's greatest
playwright. O'Neill's
plays are a direct reflection of his complex life, culminating
in the openly autobiographical Long Day's Journey Into
Night. Consequently, one must understand O'Neill's life
in order to truly understand and appreciate his great body of
work. One can start by reading the wonderful O'Neill
biographies, including O'Neill, by Arthur and Barbara Gelb,
O'Neill Son and Playwright and O'Neill Son and Artist, by
Louis Scheaffer, and Contour in Time, by Travis Bogard.
The Hammerman Collection is also an
attempt to understand O'Neill. It undertakes to
"collect" O'Neill -- to capture the man and, thereby, capture
an appreciation of his work. The Collection includes manuscripts,
first editions, limited editions, inscribed materials, letters,
photographs, theatre programs, reference materials, and various
ephemera.
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