BIOGRAPHY OF EUGENE O' NEILLEugene Gladstone O'Neill was born in a hotel room in New York City on October 16, 1888, the son of famous actor James O'Neill and Ella O 'Neill, spent the first seven years of his life touring with his father's theater company. These years introduced O'Neill to the world of theater and the difficulties of maintaining artistic integrity. His father, once a noted Shakespearean, had accepted a role in a minor play for his considerable salary. Family life was unstable. O'Neill's mother often accompanied her husband on tours, and although they had a longtime summer home, Monte Cristo Cottage in New London, Connecticut, the family was constantly on the move. O'Neill spent the next seven years of his life receiving a rigorous Catholic education before attending a private secular school in Connecticut. . The greatest instability came from James O'Neill's heavy drinking and Ella's addiction to morphine. O'Neill only discovered this at the age of 13. His brother Jamie, ten years his senior, was brilliant but erratic. Sexually perverted, heavy drinking, employed only spasmodically as an actor and constantly dependent on his father, he was a fascinating and influential figure for O'Neill. Despite a brilliant student life, he was already involved in a world of alcohol and prostitutes by the time he entered college. He eventually dropped out before finishing his freshman year at Princeton University. Although he would later enroll in a short playwriting course at Harvard, this marked the end of his formal education. After leaving Princeton University, he held an odd assortment of jobs between 1909 and 1912 and traveled extensively as a sailor. Exposure to working class people left a deep impression on the m...... middle of paper ...... (1956),• A Moon for the Misbegotten (1957) In short, Eugene O'Neill he is one of the greatest theater writers in American history. Through his experimental and emotional dramas he addresses the difficulties of human society with profound psychological complexities. Bibliography: • COMPLETE WORKS, 1924 (2 volumes) • THE FOUNTAIN, 1922 (written, published in 1926) • HAIRY MONKEY, 1921 (written, published in 1923) • NINE PLAYS, 1932 • LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT, 1941 (written , published 1955)• PLAYS, 1941 (3 vols., revived. published 1955)• EUGENE O'NEILL AT WORK, 1981• THE LONG VOYAGE HOME, 1917• ABORTION, 1913-1914 (written, published. 1958)• 'LLE, 1916 (written, published. 1919)• THE ROPE, 1918 (written, published. 1919)• THE ICEMAN COMETH, 1939 (written, published 1946)• SELECTED LETTERS, 1988 (edited by Travis Bogard and Jackson R Bryer.)