Eugene (Gladstone) O'Neill (October 16, 1888 - November 27, 1953) American playwright best known for explorations into the darker aspects of the human condition. Frequently, his plays show people on the outer edges of society or begin in a situation of ennui and despair and move dramatically downwards to a grim finish.
In 1929 he moved to the Loire Valley in France where he lived in the Chateau du Plessis in St. Antoine-du-Rocher, Indre et Loire.
Best known plays include: Desire Under the Elms (1924), Mourning Becomes Electra (1931), and The Iceman Cometh (1946). He received the Pulitzer Prize in 1920 for Beyond the Horizon and received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1936, making him the first US dramatist to do so. His autobiographical, and to an extent, darkest play, Long Day's Journey into Night was published posthumously in 1956.