Langdon Elwyn Mitchell papers

1883-1936

Poet and playwright Langdon Elwyn Mitchell (1862 - 1935) was born in Philadelphia. Son of neurologist and author Silas Weir Mitchell, Langdon studied at the St. Paul's School in New Hampshire, in Dresden and in Paris. Mitchell later took courses at Harvard and Columbia Law Schools, and was admitted to the New York Bar in 1886. However, he never practiced law but instead turned to the writing of poems and plays. In 1892, he married Marian Lea. Also from Philadelphia, Lea was appearing on the London stage at the time, but retired soon after. The couple had two daughters and a son.

Early in his career, Mitchell used the pen name "John Philip Varley". Among his books are Sylvian And Other Poems (1884), Poems (1894), Love In The Backwoods (1896), and Understanding America (1927). However, it was as a playwright that Mitchell gained his greatest success. His first play, In the Season, was produced at the St. James Theater in London in 1893. Becky Sharp a dramatization of Vanity Fair, followed in 1899. His greatest success, The New York Idea, dealing with the subject of divorce, was produced for the first time in 1906.

Mitchell was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters in February 1908. In 1928, along with four other prominent playwrights, Mitchell gave a series of lectures at the University of Pennsylvania which were published by the University Press that year under the title The Art Of Playwriting. He then accepted an invitation to become Professor of Playwriting in the University's English Department, a position established by a gift from the Mask and Wig Club, a University dramatic group. He retired in 1930.