SOURCE: “A Playwright's Manual,” in The New York Times, Vol. LXVII, No. 21897, January 6, 1918.

In the following excerpt, The New York Times reprints an article from The Boston Evening Transcript in which Moderwell discusses Thomas's essays about his own methods of dramatic composition.

An unusually clear insight into practical playwriting methods is being afforded embryo dramatists in a series of articles now being written by Augustus Thomas to accompany an edition of his plays which Samuel French is publishing. To date four plays have been published—In Mizzoura, Oliver Goldsmith, Mrs. Leffingwell's Boots, and The Witching Hour—and there are others to follow. Each of these carries its own introduction by Mr. Thomas, and in these introductions Mr. Thomas goes into the circumstances attending the writing of each play and the method in which his problems, technical and otherwise, were worked out.

The result is a manual for playwrights...