How this Library of America edition of the Complete Plays of Eugene O'Neill could possibly be rated (as of March 2015) at a mere 3½*** is beyond me. It's exactly what the LoA is supposed to be, a definitive collection of the works of a major American writer. It may be that some of these ratings result from a lack of interest in the plays themselves – this first volume of three contains O'Neill's earlier works, including many minor one-act plays, though it does include his first two Pulitzer-winners, Beyond the Horizon and Anna Christie, along with one of his finest shorter plays, The Emperor Jones.

This three-volume LoA set is a complete collection of the extant O'Neill canon (with the exception of the just-published and recently rediscovered "lost play," Exorcism); and as such, each volume is entitled to a full 5***** based on editorial quality and completeness of content. As for myself, I've been using it for a "cover to cover" read/reread of O'Neill in combination with Robert Dowling's recently published Eugene O'Neill: A Life in Four Acts as well as the O'Neill chapters in Stella Adler on America's Master Playwrights (ed. Barry Paris). ( )

Sept 11: Long Day's Journey Into Night, 5 of 5 ( )

"A wife for a life", "The web", "Thirst", "Recklessness", "Warnings", "Fog", "Bread and butter", "Bound east for Cardiff", "Abortion", "The movie man", "Servitude", "The sniper", "The personal equation", "Before breakfast", "Noe I ask you", "In the zone", "Ile", "The long voyage home", "The moon of the Caribbees", "The rope", "Beyond the horizon", "Shell shock", "The dreamy kid", "Where the cross is made", "The straw", "Chris Christophersen", "Gold", "Anna Christie", "The emperor Jones"