Anna Christie was published by Boni & Liveright in 1922 and won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama (O’Neill’s second, after Beyond the Horizon). Chris Christopherson, an aging Swedish-American who captains a coal barge in New York harbor, is reunited with his daughter Anna, whom he sent to live with relatives in Minnesota as a child. He has romanticized her as innocent and pure; she has in fact been raped by a cousin, turned to prostitution, and is hard and cynical at twenty.
On the barge, Anna falls in love with Mat Burke, an Irish stoker rescued from a shipwreck. Mat proposes marriage. Chris objects — he hates “dat ole davil sea” and all sailors. Anna, forced into honesty, tells both men the truth about her past. Mat is shattered — his Catholic morality cannot accommodate a “fallen woman.” Chris is shattered — his fantasy of her purity is destroyed.
O’Neill was never satisfied with the play’s ending, which he felt was too conventionally optimistic (Mat and Anna reconcile). He considered it his least successful major work, but audiences loved it — it was one of his biggest commercial hits and was filmed twice (1923, 1930, the latter with Greta Garbo).
Collecting Anna Christie
First edition (Boni & Liveright, New York, 1922): Boards, no dust jacket for most copies.
Market values:
- First edition, fine: $100–$300
- With rare dust jacket: $300–$800
Projected values (2026–2036): Moderate appreciation. Pulitzer Prize winner.
The Waterfront
Anna Christie (1922) won O’Neill his second Pulitzer Prize. Anna Christopherson, a former prostitute, arrives at her estranged father’s barge in New York harbor and begins a romance with a stoker named Mat Burke. O’Neill intended the play as a dark portrait of fate (“dat ole davil sea”), but audiences insisted on reading it as a happy love story — a misreading that infuriated him. The play was adapted into a famous 1930 film starring Greta Garbo (her first “talkie,” marketed with the line “Garbo talks!”). The first edition is scarce with the dust jacket.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why was O’Neill unhappy with the reception? He felt audiences sentimentalized the play, ignoring its fatalistic undertones. He later disowned the work and said its apparent happy ending was misleading — Anna and Mat’s future, he insisted, was as grim as the old man’s.