The Long Voyage Home and Other Plays (Dover Thrift Editions) [Paperback]

Eugene O'Neill (Author)

Book Description

Series: Dover Thrift Editions | Publication Date: September 28, 1995

From one of America’s greatest playwrights, 4 of his finest short plays. Written between 1913 and 1917 and filled with moody, intense and fascinating characters entrapped by larger forces, they include Bound East for Cardiff, In The Zone, The Long Voyage Home and The Moon of the Caribbees.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This installation in the Dover "Thrift" series contains several of the one-act dramas that in O'Neill lore are known as the "Glencairn plays" after the steamship on which they take place. Along with the title piece, this volume includes Bound East for Cardiff, The Moon of the Caribbees, and In the Zone. Though the four plays are brief, they are noteworthy as O'Neill's first truly important works and those that helped lead him to prominence in the American theater.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 14 and up
  
• Paperback: 80 pages
• Publisher: Dover Publications (September 28, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0486287556
• ISBN-13: 978-0486287553
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.2 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,620,256 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars The precocious mastery of O'Neill's Glencairn cycle, September 12, 2004

By 

D. Cloyce Smith (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Long Voyage Home and Other Plays (Dover Thrift Editions) (Paperback)

The four plays in this paperback were originally included in Eugene O'Neill's "The Moon of the Caribbees and Six Other Plays" (1919). This Dover edition omits "Ile," "The Rope," and "Where the Cross Is Made," and includes only the four one-act dramas set on the "tramp" steamer Glencairn. All four plays were performed in New York City between 1916 and 1918, and together they first brought O'Neill to critical attention. Although they do not share a storyline, one could easily imagine them staged together as interrelated sketches.

Set in the years leading up to the outbreak of World War I (with "In the Zone" taking place at the onset of hostilities), all four plays share common themes and characters. The only tragedy of the bunch is "Bound East for Cardiff," in which the crew of the Glencairn offer aid and encouragement to a wounded sailor who lies suffering from a horrible fall. We meet Driscoll (who is one of two characters in all four plays) as he tends to his dying friend.

While occasionally filled with tension, the remaining three plays show the far lighter side of life at sea. "In the Zone" depicts the crew's frayed nerves while their boat traverses an enemy sea filled with submarines. Smitty hides a mysterious black box and raises the suspicions of his jumpy crewmates--to unintentionally comic (although simultaneously melancholy) effect. In "The Long Voyage Home," four of the crew enjoy a shore leave in a dingy London bar, and Olson falls victim to a gang of local sharks. "The Moon of the Caribbees" sees Smitty, Driscoll, and company anchored off port in the tropics, where, defying the captain's orders, they sneak several native women (and quite of lot of rum) onto the ship.

These short, effective plays all display O'Neill's nascent mastery at depicting both sailors' vernacular and their camaraderie (and rivalry). The lack of intensity famous in O'Neill's later works is due more to the brevity of the one-act form rather than to his apprenticeship as a playwright, and one could argue that the Glencairn cycle comprise O'Neill's first major works.