An exploration of the creative process in four classic works: Death in Venice, Treasure Island, The Rubaiyat of Mar Khayyam, and War and Peace. Creating Literature Out of Life examines four very dissimilar masterpieces and their authors in search of evidence that will answer some of the many questions in the great mystery of creativity. Crossing boundaries of period, nation, and genre, the study looks into the "why" and "how" of the creation of Thomas Mann's Death in Venice, Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island,...

This study draws on new and unprecedented research concerning the lives of Eugene O Neill, his family, and his circle. It corrects and expands the biographical record on O Neill, sharpens our understanding of his art, and distinguishes the man and his life more clearly than ever from the creations that were inspired by, and drew on, that life.

In his final creative years, 1939 to 1943, O Neill wrote "The Iceman Cometh," "Long Day s Journey into Night," and "A Moon for the Misbegotten." Because these plays are so intense, intimate, and evocative of the friends and family members who...

In Eugene O'Neill's Creative Struggle, Doris Alexander gives us a new kind of inside biography that begins where the others leave off. It follows O'Neill through the door into his writing room to give a blow-by-blow account of how he fought out in his plays his great life battles--love against hate, doubt against belief, life against death--to an ever-expanding understanding. It presents a new kind of criticism, showing how O'Neill's most intimate struggles worked their way to resolution through the drama of his plays. Alexander reveals that he was engineering his own...