SOURCE: "Passive Resistance to Active Rebellion: From Trifles to The Verge" and "Ghostly Revenants and Symbolic Sons: Fugitives Return," in Susan Glaspell's Century of American Women: A Critical Interpretation of Her Work, Oxford University Press, 1993, pp. 59-82, 101-16.

The following excerpts provide a broad overview of Glaspell's development as a playwright.'

Glaspell did not publish a novel between Fidelity in 1915 and Brook Evans in 1928, the years of her involvement with the Provincetown Players, her sojourn in Greece with Cook, and her period of mourning for his death. She is, of course, best known for the plays she wrote during that period, particularly the widely anthologized Trifles (1916), and many critics consider the plays her major works because they are an exciting, innovative contribution to American drama. In terms of her fiction, tiiough, the plays are not a startling flowering or reversal, but can be seen as the thematic...