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The Louis Sheaffer-Eugene O'Neill Collection

Description

The Sheaffer-O'Neill collection is an archive of the life and works of Eugene O'Neill formed by author Louis Sheaffer in connection with his acclaimed two-volume biography, O'Neill: Son and Playwright and O'Neill: Son and Artist (Boston; Little, Brown, 1968 and 1973). The first volume received the Theatre Library Association's George Freedley Award for an outstanding contribution to the literature of the theatre, and the second volume won the 1974 Pulitzer Prize for Biography. The books were widely reviewed; the second volume was praised by Diana Trilling on the front page of The New York Times Book Review on November 25, 1973.

The success of Louis Sheaffer's biography derives in large part from the extensive research he carried out over some twenty years, and the detailed picture of O'Neill that emerged. All reviews referred to the wealth of information presented in both volumes. The voluminous documentary evidence comprising the Collection fills over 40 archive boxes.

A unique and notable feature of the Collection is the author's typewritten notes from the hundreds of interviews he conducted with individuals who knew O'Neill personally, or knew his relatives, friends or associates. Among the important figures in the O'Neill story with whom Sheaffer became friends and corresponded are the playwright's second wife, Agnes Boulton O'Neill, his third wife, Carlotta Monterey O'Neill, Agnes' daughter Barbara Burton and sister Margery Colman, Lady Oona O'Neill Chaplin (O'Neill's daughter), Jessica Rippin (one of the young O'Neill's New London friends), Beatrice Ashe Maher (O'Neill's most serious New London-era girlfriend), Dorothy Commins (the wife of O'Neill's editor, Saxe Commins), and Cynthia Chapman Stram (Carlotta O'Neill's daughter by an earlier marriage), as well as Mrs. Stram's husband and son.

In addition to 53 of Eugene O'Neill's original letters, the Collection includes several hundred copies or transcripts of important O'Neill letters held by other libraries. There are copies or transcripts of many letters written by Carlotta O'Neill, chiefly to friends, and several from Agnes O'Neill to Eugene. A complete set of Eugene's letters to Beatrice Ashe were copied by Sheaffer from the originals in the Berg Collection of the New York Public Library.

Alphabetical name files contain documents and clippings pertaining to most of the principal figures in the O'Neill story and many of the lesser ones: school classmates, New London-era friends, the Provincetown and Greenwich Village crowd, and those who were personally or professionally associated with him as he rose to the height of his fame in the 1930's. There are extensive clippings files on the plays and a collection of playbills. Several files are devoted to the Provincetown Players and the Theatre Guild.

A very large photograph collection of prints and negatives includes many formal portraits and informal snapshots of O'Neill at all ages; his wives, children and friends, pictures of the places where they lived, and scenes from productions of his plays.

An extensive O'Neill book collection (now called the Sheaffer Collection) was formed at Connecticut College before the acquisition of the Sheaffer papers and includes first or limited editions of the plays, scholarly monographs on O'Neill and his works, article offprints, and complete files of the Eugene O'Neill Review and the Eugene O'Neill Newsletter.

Since the arrival of the Sheaffer Collection, the O’Neill archives at Connecticut College have been augmented by additional material, such as the Beecroft collection of documents pertaining to Agnes Boulton, O’Neill’s second wife.   In 2006 Special Collections at Connecticut College became the repository for the research archive formed by Doris Alexander in connection with her books about O’Neill, The Tempering of Eugene O’Neill (Harcourt, Brace, 1962), Eugene O’Neill’s Creative Struggle: The Decisive Decade (1924-1933) (University of Pennsylvania, 1992), and Eugene O’Neill’s Last Plays: Separating Art from Autobiography (University of Georgia, 2005).   The Alexander-O’Neill Collection will be another valuable resource for O’Neill scholars.   It is not yet available for research.

Access to the Collection

Curator
Laurie M. Deredita
Director of Special Collections and Archives
Tel: (860) 439-2654
Fax: (860) 439-2871
lmder@conncoll.edu

 The Sheaffer-O'Neill Collection is available to any interested reader by appointment with the Curator, and is located in the Department of Special Collections and Archives of the Charles E. Shain Library at Connecticut College.

Online Resources hosted on www.eoneill.com

The Sheaffer-O´Neill Collection on www.eoneill.com

Touring Eugene O'Neill's New London on www.eoneill.com