Arthur Gelb and Barbara Gelb are the authors of O’Neill (1962) and O’Neill: Life with Monte Cristo (2000), each covering materials known at the time. By Women Possessed benefits from newly released archival material (diaries, letters) and a revisiting of material that was interdicted as long as the widow lived. It also benefits from the wisdom of age: The authors began their first O’Neill book when he was thirty-two and she thirty. Life lived has a way of adding shading that youth cannot imagine. They were just completing this final book when Arthur, then ninety, died. Among her books, Barbara is also the author of So Short a Time, a biography of John Reed (Ten Days That Shook the World) and Louise Bryant—O’Neill's great flame, perhaps because she was the one who left him; and the one-woman play My Gene, based on Carlotta Monterey’s life and starring Colleen Dewhurst. Arthur Gelb served in many positions at The New York Times before assuming the post of managing editor. He is the author of several books, most recently, the acclaimed memoir City Room.
