Black, Stephen A., Eugene O'Neill: Beyond Mourning and Tragedy, Yale University Press, 2002.

Black is an English professor and a psychoanalyst, and he uses both of these skills in this exhaustively researched biography of O'Neill. Starting with his mother's addiction to morphine as a result of O'Neill's birth, the playwright's life was plagued by a number of tragedies, including alcoholism, family strife, a string of unhappy marriages, many deaths, and the estrangement of his children.

Brietzke, Zander, The Aesthetics of Failure: Dynamic Structure in the Plays of Eugene O'Neill, McFarland & Company, 2001.

Although some of O'Neill's plays are considered great works of art, other critics have noted the lack of quality in many of his published works. Brietzke examines this fact in light of O'Neill's own theory that tragedy requires failure. The book includes a chronological listing of O'Neill's plays, including production history, characters, and plot summaries.

Finch...