| 025 |
Louis Sheaffer's drawing of
the main floor of
Monte Cristo Cottage. |
| 026 |
New London Day article
by Morgan McGinley on memories of Monte Cristo
Cottage, December 6, 1981. |
| 027 |
Louis Sheaffer's notes on Monte Cristo
Cottage (page 1). |
| 028 |
Louis Sheaffer's notes on Monte Cristo
Cottage (page 2). |
| 029 |
Louis Sheaffer's notes on Monte Cristo
Cottage (page 3). |
| 030 |
Louis Sheaffer's notes on Monte Cristo
Cottage (page 4). |
| |
Here are two of Sheaffer’s many pictures of James O’Neill
(1846-1920). In these photographs, one of which is an inscribed
original, James O’Neill is shown in his role as the Count. He was
considered one of the finest actors of his day but he became
typecast as the Count of Monte Cristo, a role that stunted his
development as an actor but made him a wealthy man. Although often
exasperated with his sons, James O’Neill always provided them with
financial support. Shown here as an example of his encouragement
of Eugene’s writing career is a copy of the first edition of
Thirst and Other One Act Plays by Eugene G. O’Neill, published
in August, 1914 at the expense of James O’Neill, Sr. Thirst
was written in 1913 and produced by the Provincetown Players at
the Wharf Theatre in Provincetown, Massachusetts in 1916 with
Eugene playing the role of the Negro sailor. This copy of
Thirst was purchased with funds provided by the Friends of the
Library. The playbill was in the library collection before the
arrival of the Sheaffer papers.
|
| 031 |
First edition of Thirst and Other One
Act Plays. |
| 032 |
Provincetown Players playbill of original
production of Thirst. |
| 033 |
Autograph photograph of James O'Neill as
the Count of Monte Cristo, front. |
| 034 |
Autograph photograph of James O'Neill as
the Count of Monte Cristo, verso. |
| 035 |
Photograph of James O'Neill as the Count of
Monte Cristo, 1900. |
| |
James O’Neill, Jr. (1878-1923) was the eldest son of James and
Ella O’Neill. Although charming, handsome and witty in his youth,
Jamie, as he was known to family and friends, soon began his
life-long rebellion against his father although he was devoted to
his mother. Undisciplined and dissolute, Jamie died of
complications from acute alcoholism shortly after Ella’s death.
Although Eugene and Jamie were estranged during Jamie’s final
years, later the playwright rendered a more sympathetic portrait
of his brother in A Moon for the Misbegotten. The
photographs here show Jamie as a little boy and later in one of
his acting roles. The telegram was sent by Eugene O’Neill to his
New London lawyer, Hadlai Hull, warning him of his brother’s
latest escapade.
|
| 036 |
Photograph of James O'Neill, Jr., age 6. |
| 037 |
Photograph of Ella
Quinlan O'Neill around the time of her marriage
in 1877. |
| 038 |
Telegram from Eugene O'Neill to Hadlai Hull
about his brother Jim, February 17, 1923. |
| 039 |
Photograph of James O'Neill, Sr., James
O'Neill, Jr. and Eugene on porch of Monte Cristo Cottage, 1900. |
| 040 |
Photograph of Eugene O'Neill, age
10. |
| 041 |
Photograph of James O'Neill, Jr. in The
Traveling Salesman. |
| |
Among the material that Sheaffer collected during his research
trips to New London were the legal files of the estate of the
O’Neill family. They had been stored in the basement of the
successor law firm of the O’Neill family lawyers, Hull, McGuire
and Hull. In 1960, Attorney Francis McGuire gave the boxes and
their contents to the biographer who found documentation of all
sorts relating to the O’Neill family. Shown
here are a probate document, assorted checks and a check
stub showing payment for Eugene’s board to Mrs. Rippin, at whose
home he lived after he returned to New London from his cure at
Gaylord Farm.
|
| 042 |
Pouch containing various legal documents
relating to the O'Neill family. |
| 043 |
Probate document relating to the estate of
James O'Neill, Sr. |
| |
It has often been said that Eugene O’Neill’s writing is extremely
autobiographical and nowhere is that more evident than in a short
story that was published in the June, 1917 issue of the literary
magazine The Seven Arts. “Tomorrow” was the only short
story that he ever published and its plot is closely related to
real events during a disastrous period in his own life. In this
photocopy of the first page of the story, the narrator makes
reference to a trip to Buenos Aires. O’Neill made a trip to Buenos
Aires in 1910 as a working passenger aboard the Norwegian
windjammer the Charles Racine.
|
| 044 |
Photograph of the Charles Racine,
on which O'Neill sailed from Boston to Buenos Aires. |
| 045 |
The Seven Arts literary magazine,
June, 1917. Contains O'Neill's short story,
“Tomorrow”. |
| 046 |
Photocopy of the first page of
“Tomorrow”. |
| |
After he was discharged from Gaylord Farm Eugene O’Neill courted
Beatrice “Bee” Ashe, a New London girl. Eventually Bee married a
Coast Guard man but during the course of their relationship Eugene
wrote Bee a great many passionate letters which ultimately ended
up in the Berg Collection at the New York . As Mrs. James Maher,
Bee became a good friend of biographer Louis Sheaffer and provided
him with many insights into this period of O’Neill’s life. Shown
here, in addition to the picture of Eugene in his swimsuit, is a
photograph of Eugene and Bee sitting on the steps of the boardwalk
at old Ocean Beach.
|
| 047 |
Photograph of Eugene O'Neill in bathing
suit in room near Harvard (1914-1915). |
| 048 |
Photograph of Eugene O'Neill and Beatrice
Ashe sitting on the steps of the boardwalk at Ocean Beach. |
| 049 |
Photograph of Catherine Anna "Kitty"
MacKay, a fellow patient at Gaylord Farm who
would serve as the model for Eileen Carmody, the heroine of The
Straw. |
| 050 |
Photograph of Eugene O'Neill in
a checked jacket. |
| 051 |
Group photograph of patients at
Gaylord Farm, including O'Neill. |
| |
The photographs below attest to the fact
that young O’Neill’s life in New London could sometimes be more
like Ah, Wilderness! than Long Day’s Journey into Night.
All of the photographs are of scenes and people taken in or near
New London.
|
| 052 |
Photograph of Thomas F. Dorsey,
New London attorney and realtor, and the
model for the off-stage McGuire in Long Day’s Journey into
Night. |
| 053 |
Photograph of Eugene
O'Neill with Nina Jones and unidentified cat around 1915. |
| 054 |
Photograph of Eugene O'Neill at the beach
around 1915. He was an excellent swimmer. |
| 055 |
Photograph of Eugene
O'Neill in New London around 1913. |
| 056 |
Photograph of Eugene O'Neill in a boat with
friends around 1913. |
| 057 |
Photograph of Mrs. James Rippin and the cat
Friday, which often shared O'Neill's bed the winter of 1913-1914,
when the fledgling playwright stayed with the Rippin family. |
|
058 |
Photograph of Eugene O'Neill with friends in
New London. |
|
059 |
Photograph of Eugene
O'Neill at Ocean Beach with some of his friends,
including Art McGinley, whose family
figures in Ah, Wilderness! |
| |
Some of Eugene O’Neill’s poetry was published in the New London
Telegraph when he worked there (with his salary secretly paid
by his father) as a cub reporter in 1912. These clippings were
given to the library by Miss Mary Raub who worked at the
Telegraph with “Gene.”
|
|
060 |
Photograph of Eugene O'Neill at
his writing desk at home in New London, circa 1914. |
|
061 |
Photograph of Judge
Frederick P. Latimer,
editor of the New London Telegraph and the chief
model for the editor/father in Ah, Wilderness! |
|
062 |
Clippings of O'Neill's poetry
from the New London Telegraph. |
| |
In 1916, O’Neill and his friend Terry Carlin, who provided the
inspiration for the character of Larry Slade in The Iceman
Cometh, went to Provincetown to spend the summer in cheap
accommodations on the water. Also summering in Provincetown were a
group of friends from Greenwich Village who had formed the
Provincetown Players to perform their own plays which were very
different from the commercial American theater of that time.
During that summer they performed O’Neill’s Bound East for
Cardiff, the first of his plays to be performed publicly. The
playbill below is from a performance
later that year when the players returned to New York.
|
|
063 |
The Provincetown Plays by George Cram Cook
and Frank Shay (Stewart Kidd Company, 1921). Given to the library
by Arvine and Sally Wales. |
|
064 |
Table of contents of
The Provincetown Plays. |
|
065 |
The Provincetown Players playbill with Bound
East for Cardiff. |
|
066 |
The Provincetown Players
subscription notice 1920-1921 (page
1). |
|
067 |
The Provincetown Players
subscription notice 1920-1921 (pages
2-3). |
|
068 |
The Provincetown Players
subscription notice 1920-1921 (page 4). |
| |
George “Jig” Cram Cook (1873-1924) was a founder of the
Provincetown Players with his wife Susan Glaspell (1882-1948), a
playwright and novelist. Cook and Glaspell were dedicated to the
idea of regenerating the American theater, and around their
Provincetown Players, in Provincetown or in Greenwich Village, was
gathered a group of like-minded artists and free spirits. Some of
the members of this group are shown in these photos.
|
|
069 |
Photograph of Edna Kenton, John Reed,
and Ethel Plummer at
a costume party, 1919. |
|
070 |
The manuscript of Edna Kenton’s unpublished
history of the Provincetown Players. |
|
071 |
Photograph of Dorothy
Day, social activist and founder of The Catholic Worker,
with whom O’Neill may have had a brief love affair. |
|
072 |
Photograph of Terry
Carlin, bohemian and free spirit, in
Provincetown. |
|
073 |
Photograph of Hippolyte
Havel, the real-life model for Hugo Kalmar in
The Iceman Cometh. |
|
074 |
Photograph of Louise
Bryant in the Russian-style dress she favored
after visiting Russia at the time of the Bolshevik Revolution.
Bryant, American revolutionary and war correspondent, was married
to John Reed. O’Neill and Bryant had an affair around 1916. |
|
075 |
Photograph of George Cram
(“Jig”)
Cook, head of the Provincetown Players (Nicholas
Muray). |
|
076 |
Photograph of Susan
Glaspell. |
|
077 |
Photograph of Jig Cook in
native costume in Greece shortly before his death. |
|
078 |
One of Jig Cook’s ambitious and detailed designs
for a structure to house his theater group. |
| |
Fortunately for his biographers Eugene O’Neill was a prolific
letter writer. The Sheaffer-O’Neill Collection includes about
twenty holograph letters by O’Neill, some of which were written to
his friend in Provincetown, John Francis, a real estate agent and
small businessman who was one of O’Neill’s earliest acquaintances
there. The letters eventually were given to Sheaffer by John’s
daughter Celia, who was very helpful in providing information
about the playwright’s time in Provincetown. John Francis is shown
here in a photograph and with some of the letters that O’Neill
wrote to him, usually about business but also about personal
matters, such as the letter describing his father’s accident in
1918 and a request for information about a type of fisherman’s
motor boat.
|
|
079 |
Photograph of John
Francis. |
|
080 |
Eugene O'Neill's letter to
John Francis, June
12, 1932 (page 1). |
|
081 |
Eugene O'Neill's letter to
John Francis, June
12, 1932 (page 2). |
|
082 |
Eugene O'Neill's letter to
John Francis,
December 24, 1918. |
|
083 |
The Practicioner,
October, 1924. |
|
|
Eugene O’Neill, Jr. (1910-1950) was the son of O’Neill’s brief
marriage to Kathleen Jenkins. After the divorce the mother
remarried and her son was given his stepfather’s surname. Until
the age of twelve young Eugene did not know who his father was but
when the father and son met for the first time they developed a
liking for each other. Eugene, Sr. assumed financial
responsibility for his son’s education and took particular pride
in his brilliant scholastic record at Yale where he received a
Ph.D. in classics in 1936 and was later appointed to the faculty.
He began to show signs of the self-destructive urge common to many
members of the O’Neill family. Eugene Jr. left his position at
Yale and tried his hand, unsuccessfully, at other jobs. There were
several failed marriages and stormy relationships, and he drank
heavily. Although father and son had become totally estranged by
this time, the suicide death of Eugene, Jr. with an empty bottle
of bourbon nearby was a blow to Eugene, Sr. In these photographs
are pictured Eugene O’Neill, Jr.’s mother; Eugene, Jr. with his
father and stepmother Agnes; at Yale; and seated at the desk at
which his father had written many plays.
|
|
084 |
Photograph of Eugene O'Neill,
Jr. in the summer of 1950, shortly
before his suicide. |
|
085 |
Photograph of Eugene O'Neill,
Jr. inscribed to his father, 1932. |
|
086 |
Photograph of Eugene O'Neill,
Jr. with Agnes and
his father, circa 1922. |
|
087 |
Photograph of Eugene O'Neill's first
wife, Kathleen Jenkins, the mother of
Eugene O'Neill, Jr. |
|
088 |
Photograph of Shane
O'Neill
with Agnes and his
father. |
|
089 |
Photograph of Shane
O'Neill with his
wife and
children. |
|
090 |
Photograph of Shane
O'Neill at
Florida military academy. |
|
091 |
Photograph of Shane
O'Neill inscribed to Louis Sheaffer,
November 11, 1971. |
| |
Oona O’Neill (1925-1991) was probably less damaged than Shane was
by the breakup of their parents’ marriage and the subsequent
emotional abandonment by their father, although Eugene continued
to support his family financially. Oona lived with her mother, was
educated at private schools and grew into a very beautiful woman
but she had little personal contact with her father. Their tenuous
relationship was severed forever in 1943 when, at the age of
eighteen, Oona became the fourth wife of actor Charlie Chaplin who
was thirty-four years her senior. The marriage prospered and
produced eight children. Displayed here are a telegram from Eugene
to his old friend John Francis announcing the birth of a daughter
and various photographs of Oona with her parents as well as a
picture of the Chaplins on their wedding day. In later years, Oona
struck up a friendship with Louis Sheaffer. Included here is a
Chaplin family Christmas card sent to Sheaffer. The Sheaffer-O’Neill
Collection includes the extensive correspondence between Lady
Chaplin and her father’s biographer and she did as much as she
could to contribute to his research.In one of her letters to
Louis Sheaffer, Oona wrote: “I understand very well what you are
trying to convey in your biography... I don’t mean “trying”
because you succeed.... I had no profound feelings about my father
- I felt no obligation towards him, and doubt if Shane did either
- how could we? But then neither did we feel any guilt. I’ve lived
with the creative drive for 25 years and quite understand his
treatment of other people. But what exasperated me (the only
word)... were the quotes from his own letters... the melodrama,
the self pity, the lack of proportion, his feeling the whole world
was obsessed with his whereabouts and love affairs... how could
one take such a man seriously??? Your book gave me an insight into
this side of him, made me forgive it and understand it to a point,
because you bring everything back, again and again, to his
childhood and youth. Also you made me see, for the first time, how
autobiographical most of his plays are. It all connected...”
|
|
092 |
Telegram from Eugene O'Neill to
John Francis, May 14, 1925, announcing
Oona's birth. |
|
093 |
Photograph of Oona O'Neill with
Agnes and her father in Bermuda in 1926. |
|
094 |
Chaplin family Christmas card
sent to Louis Sheaffer (verso). |
|
095 |
Chaplin family Christmas card
sent to Louis Sheaffer (recto). |
|
096 |
Photograph of Oona and Charlie
Chaplin after their wedding. |
|
097 |
Photograph of Shane, Agnes,
Oona and Eugene O'Neill at their home in Bermuda in 1927 before
Eugene left for New York and Carlotta Monterey who was to become
his third wife. |
|
|
Agnes Boulton (1893-1968) was the second wife of Eugene O’Neill
and the mother of his children Shane and Oona. Agnes was a writer
and they first met at the “Hell Hole” bar in New York. They were
married in 1918. After their divorce in 1929, they communicated
only through intermediaries. Agnes agreed not to write about him
or their marriage, but after O’Neill’s death she felt free to
publish an account of the early years of their life together, Part
of a Long Story, (Doubleday, 1958). Here it is displayed along
with a copy of the galley proofs of the memoir with cuts and
revisions probably made by her friend Dorothy Day who perhaps did
not want details of her younger life in Greenwich Village made
public. Agnes provided Sheaffer with a lot of information about
the period before and during her marriage to O’Neill.
After their marriage, the O’Neills continued
for a while to spend summers in Provincetown, at the old Coast
Guard Station at Peaked Hill Bars which James O’Neill, Sr. had
purchased for his son and his wife. The typed letter with the
grocery list was written by Agnes O’Neill to John Francis and
gives some idea of the difficulties of housekeeping in the house
on the dunes.
|
|
098 |
Newspaper photograph of Agnes
O'Neill at the time of her divorce from
O'Neill. |
|
099 |
Photograph of Agnes and Eugene
O'Neill on the roof of the old Coast Guard Station at Peaked Hill
Bars on the beach near Provincetown, purchased as a home for the
young couple by James O’Neill, Sr. in 1919. |
|
100 |
Photograph of Eugene O'Neill's
response to the word that his Pulitzer Prize for Beyond the
Horizon included a thousand-dollar cash award. At Peaked
Hills Bar Station. |
|
101 |
Photograph of Agnes Boulton
O'Neill, the playwright's second wife. |
|
102 |
First edition of Part of a
Long Story. |
|
103 |
Letter from Agnes O'Neill to John Francis,
crica 1924 (recto). |
|
104 |
Letter from Agnes O'Neill to John Francis,
crica 1924 (verso). |
|
105 |
Galley proof of Part of a
Long Story. |
| |
Carlotta Monterey (1888-1970), who became Eugene O’Neill’s third
wife and widow, was born Hazel Neilson Tharsing in California.
Hazel was a very beautiful woman who later adopted the more exotic
name of Carlotta Monterey to further her career as a model and
actress. She is shown here in a series of photographs taken before
her marriage to the rising playwright. In the course of writing
his biography of Eugene O’Neill, Louis Sheaffer interviewed
Carlotta at length and amassed an extensive dossier on her life.
Much of this material was given to him by Carlotta’s daughter and
son-in-law who became close friends.
|
|
106 |
Photograph of Hazel
Tharsing, age 6. |
|
107 |
Photograph of Hazel
Tharsing that helped her win the title of “Miss
California” in 1907. |
|
108 |
Photograph of Carlotta and her
first husband, John Moffat. |
|
109 |
Photograph of Carlotta, her
second husband, Melvin Chapman, and their daughter Cynthia, who
was Carlotta’s only child. |
|
110 |
Photograph of Carlotta and her
third husband, caricaturist Ralph Barton. |
|
111 |
Newspaper photograph of Carlotta
Monterey playing Lucy Gallon in “Taking Chances,”
1915. |
| |
Eugene O’Neill and Carlotta Monterey met in 1922 when she appeared
in The Hairy Ape. At that first meeting neither was very
impressed with the other. But they met again during the summer of
1926 in Belgrade Lakes, Maine where O’Neill was spending a family
vacation with his wife and all of their children. Carlotta was
recently divorced and before long they began an affair that lead
to O’Neill’s divorce from Agnes and marriage to Carlotta in 1929
in Paris.The marriage of Eugene and
Carlotta coincided with the playwright’s growing fame and
financial success. They lived abroad and in a succession of
well-decorated and expensive homes in the United States. Eugene
dedicated himself more completely to his writing and many old
friends found themselves locked out of his life. Carlotta saw her
role as muse, guardian and gatekeeper. Here the O’Neills are shown
in photographs taken during different periods of their marriage.
|
|
112 |
Photograph of Eugene and
Carlotta O'Neill shortly before they sailed for Europe. |
|
113 |
Snapshots taken at Tao House, California. |
|
114 |
Photograph of Eugene and
Carlotta O'Neill, 1931 (Ben
Pinchot). |
|
115 |
Photograph of Eugene and
Carlotta O'Neill in their home on Puget Sound, Washington,
1936. |
|
116 |
Photograph of Eugene and
Carlotta O'Neill at a rehearsal of
The Iceman Cometh in 1946. Eugene attended many of the
rehearsals and his presence was intimidating to the director and
cast. |
| |
Eugene and Carlotta were very fond of their animals. One pet that
held a special place in their affections was “Blemie” acquired
during their time in France. Blemie was with them for 12 years and
his death was the inspiration for The Last Will and Testament
of Silverdene Emblem O’Neill, written at Tao House in 1940.
This edition was printed for Carlotta Monterey O’Neill at the Yale
University Press in 1956. Inscribed by Carlotta to “Louis Shaeffer”
(sic), she writes melodramatically “When Blemie left us the world
fell apart!”
|
|
117 |
Photograph of Eugene O'Neill and
Blemie. |
|
118 |
First edition of The Last Will and Testament
of Silverdene Emblem O’Neill. |
|
119 |
Carlotta's inscription
to Louis Sheaffer in The Last Will and Testament
of Silverdene Emblem O’Neill. |
| |
O’Neill enjoyed music and had an extensive record collection.
While he was living at Tao House in California, Carlotta’s
daughter typed up an index to the collection and years later gave
this copy to Louis Sheaffer.
|
|
120 |
Typed index of
Eugene O'Neill's record collection
(cover). |
|
121 |
Typed index of
Eugene O'Neill's record collection
(page 1). |
| |
Carlotta O’Neill was named sole executrix of her husband’s estate.
Although Eugene O’Neill had deposited the manuscript of his
masterpiece Long Day’s Journey into Night in 1945 with his
publisher with a signed document forbidding its publication until
twenty-five years after his death, Carlotta decided to allow
publication of her husband’s last work. Eventually, Random House
relinquished the rights to publication and the work was published
by Yale University Press in 1956. The play was written between
1939 and 1941 and deals with a day in the life of the Tyrone
family, a thinly veiled rendering of the life of the O’Neill
family at the Monte Cristo Cottage on a day in 1912.
|
|
122 |
First edition of Long
Day’s Journey into Night. |
|
123 |
O'Neill's inscription
in Long Day’s Journey into Night. |
| |
Inscriptions: Eugene O’Neill to Carlotta Monterey O’Neill
(Yale University Press,1960), gathers together the inscriptions to
Carlotta that Eugene wrote in the books in their personal library
which were later given by her to the Yale University Library for
the Eugene O’Neill Collection. This copy is open to Carlotta’s
inscription to her husband’s biographer.
|
|
124 |
First edition of
Inscriptions: Eugene O’Neill to Carlotta Monterey O’Neill. |
|
125 |
Carlotta's inscription to Louis
Sheaffer in Inscriptions: Eugene O’Neill to Carlotta
Monterey O’Neill. |
