About the Play:

A Touch of the Poet and More Stately Mansions two full-length dramas by Nobel Laureate and four-time Pulitzer Prize winner Eugene O'Neill. Regarded as two of his finest plays, they are companion pieces, linked by characters and themes, and form part of a projected series of eleven interconnected plays in which the playwright intended to give a psychological and economic account of American life.

The first and only finished play in the proposed 11-part "American history" cycle, A Touch of the Poet addresses the immigrant experience, focusing on the father-daughter conflict of a once-wealthy, still grandly mannered tavern-keeper outside Boston in 1828 and his headstrong offspring who aligns herself with a rich American. (Cast: 3 women, 7 men)

More Stately Mansions is a sequel to A Touch of the Poet. The innkeeper's daughter Sara Melody marries the well-to-do Simon Hartford, but must contend with Simon's domineering mother for his true love and loyalty. Played out against the background of an industrial revolution, the struggle ultimately leads to tragedy and despair. (Cast: 3 women, 7 men)

A Touch of the Poet and More Stately Mansions are the only surviving plays in "American history" cycle and both are included in this volume. The version of More Stately Mansions is O'Neill's unexpurgated text, scrupulously edited by Martha Gilman Bower, which restores the playwright's original opening scene, a crucial epilogue, and other material essential to our understanding of the play.

What people say:

"Given Eugene O'Neill and a cast of superb actors, the effect on the stage is electric. The play is A Touch of the Poet." — The New York Times

"In our opinion A Touch of the Poet spells magnificent theatre. It held our attention with the grip of a vise." — New York Mirror

"With A Touch of the Poet, the new theatre season takes on dignity and importance." — New York Post

About the Playwright:

Eugene O'Neill (1889–1953), the father of American drama, the author of 49 plays, won four Pulitzer Prizes for drama, and is the only American playwright to have received a Nobel Prize (1936).