All the farces of Russia's greatest dramatist are rendered here in the classic lively translations which audiences and scholars alike applaud on the stage and in the classroom. The blustering, stuttering eloquence of Chekhov's unlikely heroes has endured to shape the voice of contemporary theatre. This volume presents seven minor masterpieces: Harmfulness of Tobacco, Swan Song, The Brute, Marriage Proposal, Summer in the Country, A Wedding, The Celebration.

J. M. Synge was one of the key dramatists in the flourishing world of Irish literature at the turn of the century. This volume offers all of Synge's published plays, which range from racy comedy to stark tragedy, all sharing a memorable lyricism. The introduction to this new, definitive edition of Synge's plays sets them--and his other work--in the context of the Irish literary movement, with special attention to his role as one of the founders of the Abbey Theatre and his work alongside W. B. Yeats and Lady Gregory. Under the General Editorship of Michael Cordner of the University of York, the texts of the plays have been newly edited and are presented with a scholarly introduction and detailed annotation. Riders to the Sea; The Shadow of the Glen; The Tinker's Wedding; The Well of the Saints; The Playboy of the Western World; Deirdre of the Sorrows;This book is intended for students of Irish Literature (especially drama).

Born in 1855 and put to work in the family law business at the age of ten, Arthur Wing Pinero deserted middle-class respectability to become an actor. He learnt his trade in the old provincial stock system before he joined Henry Irving's company at the Lyceum, and began to write plays that were to change the face of British theatre.;In 1893 The Second Mrs Tanqueray was acclaimed across Europe as the most remarkable English play of the second half of the nineteenth century. The Magistrate is now recognized as the foundation stone of British comedy. George Bernard Shaw's envious personal campaign against him helped to undermine Pinero's pre-eminence, but today his work is emerging from neglect as fresh and interesting as it ever was - and a great deal more stageworthy than much that was written by Shaw. These four plays represent a unique dramatic voice, stringent and incisive, whose insights are clothed in exuberant, energetic, and many-sided theatricality.;This book is intended for students from sixth-form upwards, studying Theatre Studies and Literature/Drama of the nineteenth century.

The Lights o' London and Other Victorian Plays is a new selection of five nineteenth-century English plays, none of which has been recently available in print. Each represents vividly and masterfully the three dominant dramatic forms of the Victorian era: melodrama, farce, and comedy. All were extremely popular with audiences, and much vigour, excitement, and variety of dramatic expression of their time can be found in these texts. Included are Edward Fitzball's The Inchcape Bell; Joseph Stirling Coyne's Did You Ever Send Your Wife to Camberwell?; The Game of Specualtion by George Henry Lewes; George Robert Sims's he Light's 'o London; and The Middleman by Henry Arthur Jones. The texts of the plays have been newly edited and are presented with an introduction and detailed annotation.

This unique volume includes eight early dramas that mirror American literary, social, and cultural history: Royall Tylers The Contrast (1789); William Dunlap's Andre (1798); James Nelson Barker's The Indian Princess (1808); Robert Montgomery Bird's The Gladiator (1831); William Henry Smith's The Drunkard (1844); Anna Cora Mowatt's Fashion (1845); George Aiken's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852); and Dion Boucicault's The Octoroon (1859).