During O Neill s lifetime and for a number of years after his death, research into his creative life was hampered by the strict security measures that guarded his privacy. There is no reason to quarrel with these restrictions since the conditions they imposed were essential to his work. In recent years, although access to basic materials is not entirely free, the situation has materially eased. Furthermore, in recent biographies and critical studies and in such helpful anthologies as O Neill and His Plays, compiled by Oscar Cargill, N. Bryllion Fagin and William J. Fisher, much important commentary has been made generally available. Insofar as possible, I have worked with original materials, but if the passage quoted has been reprinted in a source that is easily accessible, I have provided reference to that work in my notes.
All substantive footnotes are in the text itself.
Those signaled by superscript numerals are references only and may be found at the end of the volume. Page references to quotations from O Neill s plays are given in square brackets at the end of the quotation. In quoting from the unpublished writing of O Neill, in order to avoid the excrescent sic, I have silently emended small errors of spelling and punctuation. The Plays of Eugene O Neill. New York, 1955.