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,...

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...