With an Introduction and Notes by Anne Varty, Royal Holloway, University of London. Oscar Wilde took London by storm with his first comedy, Lady Windermere's Fan. The combination of dazzling wit, subtle social criticism, sumptuous settings and the theme of a guilty secret proved a winner, both here and in his next three plays, A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband, and his undisputed masterpiece, The Importance of Being Earnest. This volume includes all Wilde's plays from his early tragedy Vera to the controversial Salome and the little known fragments, La Sainte Courtisane and A Florentine Tragedy. The edition affords a rare chance to see Wilde's best known work in the context of his entire dramatic output, and to appreciate plays which have hitherto received scant critical attention. Wilde's plays have never failed to delight audiences and are a lasting testimony to their author's supreme wit and theatrical genius.

"So there's a theory that we all have a fi nite number of heartbeats. We all have a billion heartbeats to live. Humans, cats, dogs, rats - all our hearts beat at different speeds but we all have the same amount. A clock with a billion ticks." Inspired by the incredible true story of the last greater mouse-eared bat living in Britain, Vespertilio explores the tender romance between introverted bat-enthusiast Alan and Josh, the charming young runaway he meets in an abandoned railway tunnel. As their relationship develops, these two damaged men might fix one another. If only a little. Vespertilio is a story of love, loneliness and bats, an exploration of the difference between merely surviving and truly living.

A quarrelsome, hot-tempered, and unattractive swordsman falls hopelessly in love with a beautiful woman and woos her for a handsome but slow-witted suitor. A witty and eloquent drama.

This collection of three hip hop plays by Conrad Murray and his Beats & Elements collaborators Paul Cree, David Bonnick Junior and Lakeisha Lynch-Stevens, is the first publication of the critically acclaimed theatre-maker's work. The three plays use hip hop to highlight the inequalities produced by the UK's class system, and weave lyricism, musicality and dialogue to offer authentic accounts of inner-city life written by working-class Londoners. The plays are accompanied by two introductory essays: The first gives a specific social and historical context that helps readers make sense of the plays, the second positions hip hop as a contemporary literary form and offers some ways to read hip hop texts as literature. The collection also includes a foreword by leading hip hop theatre practitioner Jonzi D, interviews with the Beats & Elements company, and a glossary of words for students and international readers.