Langdon Elwyn Mitchell

Langdon Elwyn Mitchell (February 17, 1862 – October 21, 1935) was an American playwright who was popular on Broadway during the early twentieth century. Early life Mitchell was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on February 17, 1862. He was the son of a noted writer and neurologist, S. Weir Mitchell (inventor of the "rest cure"), and, his first wife, Mary Middleton Elwyn, a daughter of Dr. Elwyn of Philadelphia. His elder brother was John Kearsley Mitchell, a neurologist who married Anne Keppele Williams. After his mother died in 1862, his father married Mary Cadwalader. His paternal grandfather was writer and physician John Kearsley Mitchell. Mitchell studied in Dresden and Paris, attended the Harvard and Columbia law schools, and was admitted to the New York bar in 1886. Career A member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, he wrote plays under his own name and poetry under the pen name "John Philip Varley." Along with Clyde Fitch, William Vaughn Moody, Percy MacKaye, Ned Sheldon and Rachel Crothers, Langdon Mitchell was regarded as one of the more serious American dramatists in an era (c. 1900-1910) not notable for weighty plays. He was considered a solid craftsman whose plays provided good parts for talented actors and actresses.