Edward Sheldon

Home > People > Literature and the Arts > American Literature: Biographies

Sheldon, Edward [Brewster] (1886–1946), playwright. The son of wealthy Chicagoans, he was educated at Harvard, where he was one of the first important pupils of Professor George Pierce Baker. His first produced play was the hard‐hitting drama Salvation Nell (1908), followed by the equally powerful plays The Nigger (1909) and The Boss (1911). Sheldon's subsequent works were softer and more commercial, though often quite accomplished: the comedy Princess Zim‐Zim (1911), the gypsy melodrama Egypt (1912), the political exposé The High Road (1912), the extremely popular Romance (1913), the dramatizations Song of Songs (1914) and The Garden of Paradise (1914), the Italian The Jest (1919), and the Hungarian The Czarina (1922). With the onset of the illness that left him blind and hopelessly paralyzed for the rest of his life, he resorted to collaborations for his final works. The three most successful were Lulu Belle (1926), written with Charles MacArthur, and two written with Margaret Ayer Barnes: the comedy Jenny (1929) and the thriller Dishonored Lady (1930). Although throughout his career Sheldon willingly sacrificed depth for theatrical effectiveness, his best plays remain gripping theatre and would probably still be stageworthy if prejudices against his apparent claptrap could be set aside. Biography: The Man Who Lived Twice, Eric Wollencott Barnes, 1956.

Sheldon, Edward [Brewster] (1886–1946),born in Chicago, graduated from Harvard (1907), where he studied under G.P. Baker. His first play, Salvation Nell (1908), is the story of a reformed saloon girl. After two dramas on American politics, The Nigger (1909) and The Boss (1911), he wrote The Princess Zim‐Zim (1911), a romantic play laid in Coney Island. His other plays include Egypt (1912), melodrama; The High Road (1912), a study of a woman who rises from farm life to make her husband a presidential candidate; Romance (1913), concerned with an old man's memories of a love affair; The Song of Songs (1914), an adaptation with an American setting of a novel by Sudermann; The Garden of Paradise (1914), a poetic fantasy based on Andersen's The Little Mermaid; Bewitched (1924), a romantic play, written with Sidney Howard; Lulu Belle (1926), a study of a black prostitute, written with his nephew, Charles MacArthur; and Jenny (1929) and Dishonored Lady (1930), written with Margaret Ayer Barnes. Ned and Jack is a play (1981) about Sheldon and John Barrymore, written by Sheldon Rosen.