The Return of Peter Grimm (Unabridged)

"Mr. Belasco has written the following account of "Peter's" evolution: [ ] The play, "The Return of Peter Grimm," is an expression in dramatic form of my ideas on a subject which I have pondered over since boyhood: "Can the dead come back?" Peter Grimm did come back. At the same time, I inserted a note in my program to say that I advanced no positive opinion; that the treatment of the play allowed the audience to believe that it had actually seen Peter, or that he had not been seen but existed merely in the minds of the characters on the stage. Spiritualists from all over the country flocked to see "The Return of Peter Grimm," and I have heard that it gave comfort to many. It was a difficult theme, and more than once I was tempted to give it up. But since it has given relief to those who have loved and lost, it was not written in vain."