Ah, Wilderness! was published by Random House in 1933. It is O’Neill’s only comedy, and its warmth and nostalgia stand in stark contrast to everything else he wrote. Set in a small Connecticut town on July 4, 1906, it follows the Miller family — specifically Richard, a seventeen-year-old who has been reading Omar Khayyam, Oscar Wilde, and Swinburne, and who fancies himself a radical.
Richard has written love poems to his sweetheart Muriel; her father finds them scandalous and forbids the relationship. In response, Richard goes on a “bender” at a local roadhouse (he drinks one whiskey and is seduced by a prostitute, but flees in terror). His father, Nat Miller (a kindly newspaper editor), delivers a gentle lecture about life and love that resolves the crisis.
O’Neill wrote the play in a month — his fastest composition — and described it as the childhood he wished he’d had rather than the one he actually experienced (which he would dramatize in Long Day’s Journey into Night). The Miller family is the Tyrone family rewritten as comedy: the father is generous rather than miserly, the mother is present rather than addicted, the son is innocent rather than corrupted.
Collecting Ah, Wilderness!
First edition (Random House, New York, 1933): Boards with dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition, fine in jacket: $100–$300
- Signed: $300–$800
Projected values (2026–2036): Moderate appreciation. O’Neill’s only comedy.
O’Neill’s Light Side
Ah, Wilderness! (1933) is O’Neill’s only comedy — a nostalgic, affectionate portrait of a small-town Connecticut family on the Fourth of July, 1906. Teenager Richard Miller is a bookish, idealistic romantic who quotes Swinburne and Oscar Wilde to the alarm of his genial father. The play is the mirror image of Long Day’s Journey into Night: same period, same New England setting, same family dynamics, but drenched in warmth instead of anguish. O’Neill said it was the play about the childhood he wished he had. It became the basis for two films and the musical Take Me Along.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does this relate to Long Day’s Journey? They are companion pieces — the family O’Neill had versus the family he wished for. Reading them together illuminates both: the comedy’s sweetness becomes poignant, the tragedy’s bitterness becomes even darker.