The Road to the Temple: A Biography of George Cram Cook

by Susan Glaspell

Overview

Eugene O' Neill is one of America's most celebrated playwrights, but relatively few Americans know the name of the man who essentially gave O' Neill his first chance at greatness: George Cram "Jig" Cook, one of America's most colorful and original thinkers and the founder of the Provincetown Players, the first company to stage O'Neill. Cook's story, with all its hopes, dreams, and disappointments, is told in The Road to the Temple.

First published in 1927 in the United States and reprinted in 1941, this biography is the work of Cook's third wife, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Susan Glaspell, It traces Cook's lifelong search for self, a search that took him from his birthplace in Davenport, Iowa, to New York to Delphi; from university teaching and truck farming, to the Provincetown Players, to the antiquity of Greece. Part of Jig's story is told by excerpts from his journals, pictures, poetry, and fiction. Interwoven with narrative flashbacks, these entries concerning his day-to-day activities as well as his thoughts and feelings bring him to life for the reader. In addition, Glaspell offers finely crafted portraits of the American Midwest in the late nineteenth century; a vivid picture of Greenwich Village between 1910 and 1920; and a moving and lyrical account of the life she and Jig lived in Greece, where Jig died on January 11, 1924. A compelling combination of biography and autobiography, this volume presents a unique and personal picture of a fascinating American original."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780786420841
Publisher:	McFarland & Company, Incorporated Publishers
Publication date:	02/08/2005
Pages:	364
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.73(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

The late Susan Glaspell was a leading modern American woman playwright. Linda Ben-Zvi is professor Emerita from Tel Aviv University and Colorado State University in theatre and English.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Light of Imagination by Linda Ben-Zvi     
Preface to the 1927 Edition     
Preface to the 1941 Edition     

1. The Unintended Beauty     
2. Who Is an Honest Man?     
3. A Log-cabin     
4. Calendars     
5. Pop-eye Wilson     
6. The Silence of Noon     
7. Wordsworth on the Mississippi     
8. Harvard, ’93     
9. John Alden     
10. Black Hawk’s Watch Tower     
11. Heidelberg     
12. His Friend Mrs. Y_____     
13. Instructor Cook     
14. Sappho in Iowa City     
15. Dream Cities     
16. Kipling to Corporal Cook     
17. “Unsent”     
18. “The Faggot and the Flame”     
19. The Truck-Farmer     
20. Life Breaks a Shell     
21. The Locked Door     
22. World of Symbols     
23. Behold the Sun!     
24. “The Needle and the North”     
25. The Monist Society     
26. The Greenhouse Speaks     
27. Though Stone Be Broken     
28. Chicago     
29. Our House in Provincetown     
30. The Rhythm of the Days     
31. The Old Wharf     
32. Fire from Heaven     
33. Certain Women     
34. Nezer     
35. Paths to “The Spring”     
36. The Beloved Community     
37. The Parthenon!     
38. Making New Friends     
39. Delphi     
40. The Music of the Flocks     
41. The Bird and the Gods     
42. Shepherds and Bandits     
43. A Winter in Athens     
44. TòPuppy     
45. The Brook Runs Red     
46. Our Days at Kalania     
47. Building Walls     
48. “At Fifty I Ask God”     
49. The Play Begins     
50. By an Ancient Threshing-Floor     
51. The Play Continues     
52. Death in Delphi     
53. “The Women Spin—The Sheep Pass”     

Notes on the Text     
Selected Bibliography by Linda Ben-Zvi     
Index     

Editorial Reviews

polished and poetic”—The Eugene O’Neill Review.

From the Publisher

polished and poetic

The Eugene O'Neill Review