“A Wind is Rising”: The Correspondence of Agnes Boulton and Eugene O'Neill. Edited by William Davies King. Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2000; pp. 328. $49.50 hardcover.

Abstract

After all these years I am glad to see that the correspondence (letters, notes and wires) of O'Neill and his second wife Agnes Boulton have finally reached print. I have had occasion to use some of these letters in my research, but many I had not read until this publication. Boulton was married to O'Neill during his most experimental period as a playwright, 1918 – 29, and some of the letters provide material related to productions and his writing of the plays, but most of the letters focus on the marriage and the daily vicissitudes of living in a volatile, love-hate relationship which vacillates between the euphoric and the accusatory, much like the text of O'Neill's 1924 play Welded — a thinly disguised account of their relationship.