Moon for the Misbegotten
The last work from one of the twentieth century's most significant writers, continuing the semi-autobiographical cycle centring on the Tyrone family started by Long Day's Journey into Night.
James 'Jamie' Tyrone Jnr is a hard-drinking Broadway playboy, trying to blot out his painful memories of the past by indulging his craven self-destructive streak. One day he finds that he has wandered to the home of his salty tenant-farmer Phil Hogan; and Hogan's lusty, jaded daughter Josie.
Under the Connecticut moon, Jamie and Josie find something in each other they never knew existed – though it is only when he passes out dead drunk that Josie can really touch him. But will he still be there when the moon goes?
Eugene O'Neill's play A Moon for the Misbegotten had its world premiere at the Hartman Theatre in Columbus, Ohio, in 1947. It premiered on Broadway in 1957.
This edition of the play includes a full introduction, biographical sketch and chronology.
Eugene O'Neill was the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, and at the time of his death in 1951 had written over twenty plays.