Sidney Howard's dramatic output during the two decades following World War I--twenty-seven plays produced in New York, a pageant drama, and more than a dozen film scripts--affords him the distinction of being one of the most prolific dramatists of the postwar American theatre. His realistic social dramas, although diverse in subject matter, are unified by the distinctly modern outlook which Howard brought to his work, along with a well-developed sense of the technical requirements of a successful play. He was, moreover, a leader in the battle by professional playwrights for greater control over their creations.

"As a thinker," Howard wrote in his preface to Lucky Sam McCarver (1926), "I am neither profound nor original." This seemingly self-deprecating pronouncement reveals more about Howard's notion of the dramatist's role in the theatre than it serves as a personal assessment of his talent and imagination. He took the position that the playwright's...