Mitchell, Langdon Elwyn

(1862-1935)

   Born in Philadelphia, the son of prominent fiction writer S. Weir Mitchell, Langdon Mitchell later adapted some of his father's Civil War novels for the stage. He studied abroad, graduated from Columbia Law School, and was admitted to the New York Bar in 1886. His earliest produced plays were in London in 1892: the full-length Deborah, a Civil War drama starring his actress wife Marion Lea, followed three months later by three one-acts, notably In the Season. Mitchell remains best remembered for his eyebrow-raising satire of divorce, The New York Idea (1906). Many of his plays were based on novels, notably Becky Sharp (1899), which he wrote for Minnie Maddern Fiske, and Major Pendennis (1916). In 1928, he became the first professor to hold the Mask and Wig Club Chair in playwriting at the University of Pennsylvania.