The Emperor Jones.

O'NEILL, Eugene.

$125.00

Item Number: 118107

Cincinnati: Stewart Kidd, 1921.

First separate edition of the play that established O’Neill as a successful playwright. Octavo, original wrappers. In near fine condition.

The Emperor Jones tells the tale of Brutus Jones, a resourceful, self-assured African American and a former Pullman porter, who kills another black man in a dice game, is jailed, and later escapes to a small, backward Caribbean island where he sets himself up as emperor. The play recounts his story in flashbacks as Brutus makes his way through the jungle in an attempt to escape former subjects who have rebelled against him. The play was O'Neill's first big box-office hit. It established him as a successful playwright, after he won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his first play, the much less well-known Beyond the Horizon (1920).