Erikson, Erik H., Toys and Reason: Stages in the Ritualization of Experience, W. W. Norton [and] Co., 1977.

Erikson, a world-renown psychiatrist, looks at the importance of play to the psyche. His thesis that play is a way of buffering the contact of the self with the reality of the social world might explain Elwood P. Dowd's behavior.

Frommer, Myrna Katz, and Harvey Frommer, It Happened on Broadway: An Oral History of the Great White Way, Harcourt Brace, 1998.

The history of the Broadway stage at the height of its greatness is told by actors, authors, producers, and others who have worked there.

Shipley, Joseph T., The Crown Guide to the World's Best Plays, Crown Publishers, Inc., 1986,.

A brief overview (pp. 141 2) of how Harvey was received when it was first produced and of its cultural significance, along with a list of revivals through the 1980s.

Simon, Neil, Rewrites...