Chapter The Essay and The Drama of Index by Simonds History of American Literature

For and The Man of the Hour appeared in this same decade; and Eugene Walter (born 1874), author of Paid in Full (1907) and The Easiest Way (1909). Two of the plays of Edward Sheldon (born 1886), The Nigger (1909) and The Boss (1911), may be included in this group.

In Other Fields.

Of a very different type are The Auctioneer (1901) and The Music Master (1904) by Charles Klein, and Edward Sheldon's Romance (1912), plays of sentiment which attained a large success. Redolent of mid-western humor are The County Chairman (1903) and The College Widow (1904) by George Ade (born 1866). The Great Divide (1907), by William Vaughn Moody, an important contribution to the American drama, combines the spirit of the West with that of the East in elemental and poetical treatment of a melodramatic theme. Booth Tarkington's The Man from Home (1902) was that popular writer's first dramatic success; his Clarence (1919), The Wren (1921), and The Intimate Strangers (1921) are better plays. Rachel Crothers (born 1878) is the author of The Three of Us (1906), A Man's World (1909), and other successful comedies.

The Literary Type

Percy Wallace MacKaye (born 1875), son of a well-known actor whose Hazel Kirke (1880) was one of the best among the plays of his time, is perhaps too much the poet to hold a place with the practical playwrights of this generation. His dramas in blank verse, Jeanne D'Arc (1906) and Sappho and Phaon (1907), are supplemented by masques, pageants, and lighter lyric plays in which his poetic art is dominant. Mater (1908), The Scarecrow (1908), Anti-Matrimony (1910), and Thoroughbreds (1911) are representative of his prose plays. Children of Earth (1915), by Alice Brown (born 1857), received a prize of $10,000 offered by a New York producer of plays. It is strong in characterization and faithful to the atmosphere of its New England setting. The dramatic works of Josephine Preston Peabody (1874-1922) are distinctly of the literary type. Marlowe (1901), The Piper (1909), and her later sympathetic prose drama based on the story of Mary Wollstonecraft, Portrait of Mrs. W. (1922), are for the reader rather than the stage.

The Modern Drama.

A new development in our dramatic art is apparent in the plays of Eugene G. O'Neill (born 1888), the appearance of whose Beyond the Horizon (1919), Emperor Jones(1921), Anna Christie (1921), and The Hairy Ape (1922), is the outstanding event in recent theatrical history. Whether, or not, these intense realistic dramas, primitive, sombre, and tragic, are to have more than a temporary influence on the American stage, they are at least significant of the spirit of the vigorous young writers in the modern group who are not content with the traditions of the past and are seeking new standards and new forms.

For Reference, and Reading.

The American Dramatist, by Montrose J. Moses (Little, Brown & Co.), is the best handbook for students of the American drama. The chapter on "The Americans" in The Drama To-day, by Charlton Andrews (Lippincott) contains useful comment. Richard Burton's The New American Drama (Crowell) is general and discursive. Many of the plays cited in the text and many others are now available in single editions and in collections. Modern American Plays, edited by George P. Baker (Harcourt, Brace & Co.), Representative American Plays, edited by Arthur H. Quinn (Century), and the third volume of Representative Dramas by American Dramatists, edited by Montrose J. Moses (Dutton), are excellent. The Drama League Series (Doubleday) includes separate issues of significant productions. Best Plays of 1919-1920, Best Plays of 1920-21 and Best Plays of 1921-22, by Burns Mantle (Small, Maynard & Co.), contain descriptive summaries of the successful plays of each season.

A CHRONOLOGICAL REVIEW OF AMERICAN LITERATURE

MISCELLANEOUS PROSE.	FICTION.	POETRY.	IN GREAT BRITAIN.	HISTORICAL ITEMS.
Emerson's Nature, 1836.	Simms's Mellichampe, 1836.	Bryant's Poems, 1836.	Pickwick Papers, 1836.	Longfellow, Prof. of Modern Languages at Harvard, 1836.
Irving's Astoria, 1836.	Twice-Told Tales, 1837.	Holmes's Poems, 1836.	Oliver Twist, 1837.	Van