and themes, they form part of a projected series of eleven interconnected plays in which the playwright intended to give a psychological and economic account of American life. Now these works, the only surviving plays in O’Neill’s “Cycle,” are brought together for the first time in a paperback volume. The version of More Stately Mansions presented here is O’Neill’s unexpurgated text, scrupulously edited by Martha Gilman Bower, which restores the playwright’s original opening scene, a crucial epilogue, and other material essential to our understanding of the play.

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