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Creator
Mitchell, Langdon Elwyn, 1862-1935
Call number
*T-Mss 1975-003
Physical description
12.4 linear feet (29 boxes, 1 volume)
Preferred Citation

Langdon Mitchell papers, Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library.

Repository
Billy Rose Theatre Division
Access to materials
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Langdon Elwyn Mitchell (1862-1935) was an American playwright, poet and professor of playwriting. The Langdon Mitchell papers consist of drafts of Mitchell's plays, journals and diaries and notes and texts for his lectures.

Biographical/historical information

Langdon Elwyn Mitchell (1862-1935) was an American playwright, poet and professor of playwriting. Mitchell also wrote poetry, under the pseudonym John Philip Varley. The son of neurologist and author, Silas Weir Mitchell, Mitchell was born in Philadelphia. After studying law at Harvard and Columbia Universities, Mitchell was admitted to the New York Bar in 1886. He traveled abroad for some time and eventually returned to Philadelphia where he went into law practice.

He began his writing career with poetry, publishing collections such as Sylvian and Other Poems (1884) and Poems (1894). He also published a collection of short stories in 1896, Love in the Backwoods. When Mitchell turned his focus to playwriting, he achieved more success. His first produced play, In the Season, premiered in London in 1893 and on Broadway in 1895, but he wasn't acknowledged as an important playwright until his 1899 success with Becky Sharp.

An adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray's classic novel, Vanity Fair, Becky Sharp starred Mrs. Minnie Maddern Fiske, the leading actress of the day. The 1935 film adaptation of Becky Sharp, starring Miriam Hopkins, was the first full-length Technicolor film.

Other notable plays by Mitchell include The New York Idea, an examination of the emerging phenomenon of casual divorce; A Kentucky Belle; Step By Step; The New Marriage; another Thackeray adaptation, Major Pendennis; and an adaptation of Tolstoy's The Kreutzer Sonata.

In 1928, Mitchell joined fellow playwrights Jesse Lynch Williams, Lord Dunsany, Gilbert Emery and Rachel Crothers to create a playwriting course at the University of Pennsylvania, where he lectured for two years. Some of their lectures were published in The Art of Playwriting: Lectures Delivered at the University of Pennsylvania on the Mask and Wig Foundation (1928).

In 1892, Mitchell married actress Marion Lea, with whom he had one son and two daughters. Mitchell died at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia on October 21, 1935.

Scope and arrangement

The Langdon Mitchell papers consist mainly of drafts and outlines of plays and screenplays written by Mitchell. Some of these plays were produced on Broadway, such as Becky Sharp, the New York Idea, In the Season, Major Pendennis and The Kreutzer Sonata. While the majority of the material in the Plays series is made up of drafts, occasionally other items pertaining to the plays are included, such as programs, correspondence, agreements, clippings, flyers and various publicity materials.

Series II: Other Writings has extensive journals and diaries that Mitchell kept for over several decades. Many of them pertain to drama and poetry and were partially indexed by Mitchell. The texts, notes and extracted quotations for Mitchell's lectures on playwriting at the University of Pennsylvania, where he taught from 1928 to 1930, are also included here.

Series III: Correspondence dating from 1876 to 1935 contains letters between Mitchell and friends such as Robert Carter Jett, Benjamin Haden, Vinton Freedley, and N. W. Planck. There are also letters from Mitchell's students at Princeton University and from fans of his writings. Correspondents of Mitchell's during his youth include Chapman Mitchell, Charles Knox, Ernest Coleridge, and Charles Lowry. There is also extensive correspondence between Mitchell and his family members, including his father, S. Weir Mitchell; his brother, John K. Mitchell; and his sister-in-law, the painter, Anna Lea Merritt.

Materials on Mitchell's poetry and his correspondence with Dorothy Thomas are held in the Manuscripts and Archives Division. See related collections.

The Langdon Mitchell papers are arranged in three series:

Administrative information

Source of acquisition

Donated by Eleanor F. Johnson and David Price in 1975.

Processing information

Compiled by Diana Bertolini, 2012

This collection was re-foldered and original folder titles were retained where possible. Portfolios of loose journal writings were broken down into folders.

Related Material

Langdon Elwyn Mitchell papers, 1883-1936. Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library. Langdon Mitchell letters to Dorothy Thomas, 1917-1935. Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library.

Using the collection

Location

Billy Rose Theatre Division
New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center
40 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023-7498
Third Floor