Eugene O'Neill

Born October 16, 1888, O'Neill absorbed the drama techniques of Chekhov, Ibsen, and Strindenberg and planted them in American soil, writing in the vernacular and setting his characters on society's edges where aspirations curdle. He wrote nearly all tragedy, very few comedies — only Ah, Wilderness! is well known among them. The Pulitzers came four times, more than any playwright before or since. In 1936 he took the Nobel Prize in Literature. Long Day's Journey into Night, his poetically titled descent into family ruin, landed on the short list of the century's finest American plays alongside W…