Agnes Ruby Boulton (September 19, 1893 – November 25, 1968) was a British-born American

pulp magazine Pulp magazines (also referred to as "the pulps") were inexpensive fiction magazines that were published from 1896 to the late 1950s. The term "pulp" derives from the cheap wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed. In contrast, magazine ...

writer in the 1910s, later the wife of

Eugene O'Neill Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the U.S. the drama techniques of realism, earlier ...

Life and career

Boulton was born in

1893 Events January–March * January 2 – Webb C. Ball introduces railroad chronometers, which become the general railroad timepiece standards in North America. * Mark Twain started writing Puddn'head Wilson. * January 6 – ...

in London, England, the daughter of Cecil Maud (Williams) and Edward William Boulton, an artist. She grew up in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...

"Mrs. Agnes Kaufman, 7'5, Dies; Eugene O'Neill's Second Wife: Writer of Short Stories and Pulp Novels Was Mother of Oona and Shane", ''The New York Times'', November 26, 1968, p. 53 and later in West

Point Pleasant, New Jersey Point Pleasant is a borough in Ocean County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough's population was down from 19,306 in 2000 but still up from 18,177 in 1990. The Borough is a Jersey Shore community sit ...

. She had married a Mr. Burton, who died prior to the meeting between O'Neill and Agnes Boulton; they had a daughter, Barbara. Boulton met O'Neill in the fall of 1917 in the ''Golden Swan Saloon'', better known as ''The Hell Hole'', in

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

. They married some six months later, on April 12, 1918, at

Provincetown, Massachusetts Provincetown is a New England town located at the extreme tip of Cape Cod in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, in the United States. A small coastal resort town with a year-round population of 3,664 as of the 2020 United States Census, Province ...

."Agnes Boulton Collection of Eugene O'Neill"
Yale University Library, accessed February 17, 2012 O'Neill, at the time, was considered a promising author of one-act plays. During the first year of their marriage, he wrote ''Beyond the Horizon,'' his first full-length, Broadway play, which won the

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had ma ...

1920 Events January * January 1 ** Polish–Soviet War in 1920: The Russian Red Army increases its troops along the Polish border from 4 divisions to 20. ** Kauniainen, completely surrounded by the city of Espoo, secedes from Espoo as its own ma ...

. During the early years of the marriage, Boulton modified her writing and had two stories published by ''

The Smart Set ''The Smart Set'' was an American literary magazine, founded by Colonel William d'Alton Mann and published from March 1900 to June 1930. Its headquarters was in New York City. During its Jazz Age heyday under the editorship of H. L. Mencken and ...

'', an important magazine co-edited by

H. L. Mencken Henry Louis Mencken (September 12, 1880 – January 29, 1956) was an American journalist, essayist, satirist, cultural critic, and scholar of American English. He commented widely on the social scene, literature, music, prominent politicians, ...

and

George Jean Nathan George Jean Nathan (February 14, 1882 – April 8, 1958) was an American drama critic and magazine editor. He worked closely with H. L. Mencken, bringing the literary magazine '' The Smart Set'' to prominence as an editor, and co-founding an ...

. She gave birth to Shane O'Neill in 1919 and

Oona O'Neill Oona O'Neill, Lady Chaplin (14 May 1925 – 27 September 1991) was an actress who was the daughter of Irish-American playwright Eugene O'Neill and English-born writer Agnes Boulton, and the fourth and last wife of English actor and film-maker C ...

in 1925. The marriage came to an end when O'Neill left Boulton for the actress Carlotta Monterey in 1928, and they divorced in 1929."UCSB Theater Arts Scholar Examines Life of Agnes Boulton, Wife of Playwright Eugene O'Neill-Press Release"
UC Santa Barbara, September 1, 2010 The Boulton/O'Neill marriage has been studied and written about by William Davies King, professor of theater at UC Santa Barbara, in "Another Part of a Long Story: Literary Traces of Eugene O'Neill and Agnes Boulton" (Michigan 2010). Her daughter,

, married

Charlie Chaplin Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin Jr. (16 April 188925 December 1977) was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, the Tramp, and is consider ...

in 1943 at the age of 18 (he was 54), and moved to Switzerland with him nine years later, renouncing her American citizenship. Boulton published a novel, ''The Road Is Before Us'', in

1944 Events Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix. January * January 2 – WWII: ** Free French General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny is appointed to command French Army B, part of the Sixth United States Army Group in ...

, and a memoir of the first two years of her marriage to O'Neill in 1958, entitled ''Part of a Long Story''. The memoir gives a portrayal of an odd literary marriage at its inception. A new and annotated version of that book was published by McFarland in 2011. A selection of her stories can be found on eOneill.com. Contrary to the terms of the 1929 divorce settlement, Boulton had saved most of her letters to and from O'Neill, as well as some O'Neill manuscripts, including "Exorcism," a one-act play by O'Neill, which was thought to have been destroyed but had been given by Boulton to a friend, screenwriter-producer

Philip Yordan Philip Yordan (April 1, 1914 – March 24, 2003) was an American screenwriter of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s who produced several films. He acted as a front for blacklisted writers although his use of surrogate screenwriters predates the McCarth ...

. It was published in the October 17, 2011, issue of ''The New Yorker''. The O'Neill/Boulton correspondence was published in 2000 by Fairleigh Dickinson University Press in a volume called ''A Wind Is Rising.''O'Neill, Eugene and Boulton, Agnes; King, William Davies (Ed.)
"A Wind Is Rising"
''A Wind Is Rising'' (2000), books.google.com, Associated University Presses, Inc. (Cranbury, NJ), For a full biographical study of Boulton, see William Davies King, "Another Part of a Long Story: Literary Traces of Eugene O'Neill and Agnes Boulton" (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2010)

Boulton died on November 25, 1968 in literature, 1968 in West Point Pleasant, New Jersey.

References

External links

* * Agnes Boulton Papers. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. {{DEFAULTSORT:Boulton, Agnes English short story writers English women novelists 1893 births 1968 deaths American women short story writers British emigrants to the United States 20th-century English women writers Writers from Philadelphia People from Point Pleasant, New Jersey Novelists from New Jersey 20th-century American memoirists American women memoirists English memoirists American women novelists 20th-century American novelists 20th-century English novelists 20th-century American short story writers Novelists from Pennsylvania Writers from London 20th-century American essayists English women non-fiction writers 20th-century American women writers