8vo. Half-title, title printed in blue and black. Original blue cloth; in unrestored unclipped dust jacket (some browning, primarily to spine, some minor chipping, tiny abrasion lower spine fold). Provenance: Dixie French (presentation inscription).

FIRST EDITION. PRESENTATION COPY, INSCRIBED BY O'NEILL on the front free endpaper: "For May Davenport Seymore, with all good wishes. Eugene O'Neill. Oct., 1946."

Dixie French was the company manager for the Broadway run of The Iceman Cometh, which played at the Martin Beck Theater from 9 October 1946 to 15 March 1947.  Inscribed works by O'Neill are uncommon in this late period of his career due to the effects of Parkinson's disease.  After receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1936, O'Neill wrote three of his most autobiographical works.  The first of these, The Iceman Cometh, restored him to Broadway.  Laid in is a request for seats to the show, with two caricatures, to Dixie French from cartoonist "Cheerio." Atkinson A35-I-I.a.