A critical study of author Brendan Behan and his work, through collected letters, correspondence, material from previous publications and personal reminiscences. E.H.Mikhail has published work on other literary figures including "James Joyce: Interviews and Recollections".

Introduced by Patrick Lonergan, The Methuen Drama Anthology of Irish Plays brings together five major works from the Irish dramatic canon of the last sixty years in one outstanding collection. Behan's The Hostage, depicting the capture and death of a British soldier by the IRA, was first produced by Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop in 1958 and was declared 'a masterpiece' by The Times. Murphy's Bailegangaire (1985) portrays a senile old woman's recitation of an epic tale to her two granddaughters who struggle to free themselves from her and exorcise the past. Reid's The Belle of the Belfast City, winner of the George Devine Award in 1986, examines the tensions present in three generations of women in a Belfast-Protestant family during the week of an anti-Anglo-Irish rally. Sebastian Barry's The Steward of Christendom won the London Critics' Circle Award for Best Play 1995 and was heralded by the Guardian as 'an authentic masterpiece'. McDonagh's 1996 play The Cripple of Inishmaan is a strange comic tale in the great tradition of Irish storytelling. McDonagh was awarded the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright.

Borstal Boy is an autobiography about Brendan Behan's teenage years, before and during World War Two. Born in Dublin, Ireland in 1923, Brendan had become an alcoholic by the time he was eight years old. When he was 14 he became a member of the IRA (Irish Republican Army). In 1939 he went to Liverpool, England, carrying explosives for the IRA. On the eve of his arrival he was arrested and in February 1940 he was sentenced to three years' reform school. First published in 1958, this autobiography follows the fascinating story of his early years.

Brendan Behan's genius was to strike a chord between critic and common man. When he died, at the age of 41, he was arguably the most celebrated Irish writer of the twentieth century. After the Wake is a collection of seven prose works and a series of articles. It includes all that exists of an unfinished novel, 'The Catacombs', and pieces together items whose comic and fanciful accounts evoke Flann O'Brien. Also featured are works of acknowledged excellence, 'The Confirmation Suit' and 'A Woman of No Standing'. This writing bears all the hallmarks of the author's talent - an ability to bring characters to life quickly and unforgettably, a sharp ear for dialogue and dialect, and a natural vocation for story-telling. This diverse collection is a delightful and entertaining windfall from one of Ireland's most colourful writers. An essential complement to Behan's master works.

This volume contains everything Brendan Behan wrote in dramatic form in English Contains the three famous full-length plays: The Quare Fellow, set in an Irish prison ("In Brendan Behan's tremendous new play language is out on a spree, ribald, dauntless and spoiling for a fight ...with superb dramatic tact, the tragedy is concealed beneath layer after layer of rough comedy" Observer); The Hostage, set in a Dublin lodging-house of doubtful repute where a young English soldier is being kept prisoner, "shouts, sings, thunders and stamps with life...a masterpiece" (The Times); and Richard's Cork Leg, set in a graveyard, "a joyous celebration of life" (Guardian). The volume also contains three one-act plays, originally written for radio and all intensely autobiographical, Moving Out, A Garden Party and The Big House.

Confessions of an Irish Rebel is an autobiography about Brendan Behan’s later life. A renowned poet and playwright, Brendan spent much of his life in and out of pubs and prisons - serving time for carrying explosives for the IRA (Irish Republican Army) or for involvement in a shooting in the early 1940s. While in prison he learned Irish and began to write poetry in Irish. After his release, he spent some time in Paris and back in Dublin he contributed to a weekly show on Radio Telefis Éireann. From 1953 he wrote a column in the Irish Press. Confessions of an Irish Rebel follows Borstal Boy, a memoir about his early years.

An essential text in the development of modern British drama First staged by Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop company at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East, London, in 1958, The Hostage is a play about a Cockney soldier held as a hostage in a Dublin lodging house in exchange for an IRA man who is to be hanged in Belfast. Civic Guards accidentally shoot him in a raid on the house. It is a witty and often profound comment on Anglo-Irish relationships and on the Irish themselves. This is Behan's best-known and most popular play and a classic of the modern stage.A magnificent entertainment which "crowds in tragedy and comedy, bitterness and love, caricature and portrayal, ribaldry and eloquence, patriotism and cynicism..." (Harold Hobson, The Times)