"Love and admiration and respect" : the O'Neill-Commins correspondence /

Dorothy Berliner Commins's valuable edition of the letters between her husband, Random House senior editor Saxe Commins, and major American dramatist Eugene O'Neill supplements our knowledge of the playwright's life provided in biographies by Doris Alexander (The Tempering of Eugene O'Neill, 1962) and by Louis Sheaffer (O'Neill: Son and Playwright, CH, Feb '70), and in the edition of J.R. Bryer and R.M. Alvarez (``The Theater We Worked For'': The Letters of Eugene O'Neill to Kenneth Macgowan, 1982). Commins, who also worked with Dreiser, Gertrude Stein, Isak Dinesen, Sinclair Lewis, Auden, Faulkner, and W.C. Williams, is represented here both by his 160 letters to the dramatist and portions of his memoir of O'Neill. O'Neill's 82 letters cover the period 192051 and reflect O'Neill's need for the personal affection as well as for the professional attention Commins paid him. Travis Bogard's illuminating foreword to the volume states, ``it is probable that no other person except Carlotta was trusted so completely or came so close to knowing the essential O'Neill.'' The correspondence produces useful biographical information on O'Neill's period in Europe in the late 1920s, Carlotta's increasing jealousy of Commins as O'Neill's trust for his editor's judgment increased, and Commins's obvious admiration of the playwright (lending O'Neill invaluable assistance with Long Day's Journey). Includes clear photos from 1923 to the late 1930s, good introductions by the editor, index, but no bibliography. Useful for upper-division undergraduates and graduate students.-F.R. Cunningham, University of South Dakota

One of America's premier editors, Commins worked with Faulkner and O'Hara but reserved his warmest regard for longtime friend O'Neill. Commins's widow here charts that friendship from its beginnings to its forced dissolution. The letters are primarily to Commins from O'Neill and his last wife, Carlotta. O'Neill reciprocated Commins's devotion, as did Carlotta, who generally despised O'Neill's old acquaintances. But age and illness made Carlotta's suspicions of ``outsiders'' pathological, leading to ugly scenes. By O'Neill's death, he and Commins were cut off completely. This sad tale has been told before, but it has a special poignance in this format. For subject collections. Starr E. Smith, Georgetown Univ. Lib., Washington, D.C. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.