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"Love and Admiration and Respect"

Commins, Dorothy (ed)
Durham: Duke University Press, 1986
First edition, with dust jacket

 
    NOTES:  The letters of O'Neill to Saxe Commins.
 

From F. R. Cunningham - Choice  
Travis Bogard's illuminating foreword to the volume states, it is probable that no other person except Carlotta was trusted so completely or came so close to knowing the essential O'Neill.' The correspondence produces useful biographical information on O'Neill's period in Europe in the late 1920s, Carlotta's increasing jealousy of Commins as O'Neill's trust for his editor's judgment increased, and Commins' obvious admiration of the playwright (lending O'Neill invaluable assistance with Long Day's Journey into Night {BRD 1956}). Includes clear photos from 1923 to the late 1930s, good introductions by the editor, index, but no bibliography. Useful for upper-division undergraduates and graduate students.
 
From Library Journal  
One of America's premier editors, Commins worked with Faulkner and O'Hara but reserved his warmest regard for longtime friend O'Neill. Commins' widow here charts that friendship from its beginnings to its forced dissolution. The letters are primarily to Commins from O'Neill and his last wife, Carlotta. O'Neill reciprocated Commins' devotion, as did Carlotta, who generally despised O'Neill's old acquaintances. But age and illness made Carlotta's suspicions of ``outsiders'' pathological, leading to ugly scenes. By O'Neill's death, he and Commins were cut off completely. This sad tale has been told before, but it has a special poignancy in this format. For subject collections. Starr E. Smith, Georgetown Univ. Lib., Washington, D.C.

 

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