Susan Glaspell: A Critical Biography

During her lifetime, playwright and novelist Susan Glaspell (1876-1948) was regarded as highly as Eugene ONeill and Edith Wharton. Winner of the 1931 Pulitzer Prize for drama (for Alisons House), she was cofounder of the Provincetown Players, the little theater that "discovered" ONeill. Later, Glaspell was instrumental in introducing American drama to English audiences when her play The Verge was produced in London. Yet despite her many accomplishments, Glaspell is often overlooked in the standard histories of American theater. Now, Barbara Ozieblo returns this intriguing and important figure to the spotlight.

Ozieblo combines an engaging narrative of Glaspells life with insightful analysis of her creative works. Rebelling early against the expectations imposed on women of her era, Glaspell grappled with the conflict between Victorian mores and feminist aspirations throughout her life. In Trifles, now recognized as a groundbreaking feminist drama, she explored the reasons for a womans extreme response to her husbands demanding, authoritarian stance. Ozieblo also investigates Glaspells relationship with dramatist George Cram Cook, exploring the scandal that surrounded their courtship and marriage as well as the life they led among the bohemians of Greenwich Village.