"Candida" is the story of its title character, a woman who is married to the Reverend Morell. Candida is a woman of many talents and her husband has his wife to thank for much of his success. When a young man by the name of Marchbanks professes his love for Candida, Morell must reexamine his relationship with his wife and ultimately discovers a side to her that he never knew existed. «Candida» is a play written during a time of great empowe ...
Born and educated in Dublin, Ireland, William Butler Yeats discovered early in his literary career a fascination with Irish folklore and the occult. Yeats felt an internal struggle with the contradictions he saw between his nature and life, and spent much of his life seeking out a philosophical system to resolve this conflict. He came to prominence during a tumultuous period in Irish history, and he struggled with the idea of an independent Iris ...
Thomas Middleton (1580-1627), a bricklayer's son, rose to become one of the most eminent playwrights of the Jacobean period. Along with Ben Johnson he helped shape the dynamic course of drama in Renaissance England. His range is broad, as his work successfully covers comedy, tragedy, and history. Praised during his life as well as today, Middleton remains relevant and influential. This edition collects five of his most treasured dramas, dem ...
Eugene O'Neill's 1922 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, «Anna Christie,» is the story of a young woman who following an illness decides to visit and spend some time with her father, a coal barge captain who she hardly knows. During this time she meets a sailor, Mat, who is looking to settle down, and the two fall in love. «Anna Christie» is a gripping drama of a woman torn between the expectations of two men, her father and her lover, and ...
First staged in 1906, «The Doctor's Dilemma» is a play that revolves around a community of doctors, most specializing, unbeknownst to them, in different types of expensive, fraudulent treatments. Dr. Ridgeon, who has actually discovered a vaccine for tuberculosis, is conflicted about administering his limited remedy, for the husband of a woman he is in love with can pay, but his kind yet poverty-stricken colleague Dr. Blenkinsop cannot. Sha ...
Considered by many critics as Ibsen's masterpiece, «Rosmersholm» is the story of Johannes Rosmer, a former clergyman and owner of the title estate Rosmersholm. When Rosmer intends to use his position in the community to help the newly elected reformist government his ruling-class brethren turn against him. A series of tragic consequences ensue in this classic drama of social and political change. ...
Oscar Wilde's classic drama, «An Ideal Husband,» is the story of an up-and-coming politician with a secret past and the blackmail scheme to keep that secret quiet. Wilde's play is a first-rate comedy that challenges its audience with the basic theme of morality and the greater standard that seems to fall upon those individuals in the public eye. ...
Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816) was a man with many roles. He was not only a playwright and poet, he was also a Whig Member of the British House of Commons and owner of the London Theatre Royal on Drury Lane. Though born in Ireland, Sheridan and his family moved outside of London when he was seven. Both of his parents were theatrical influences for him, as his mother was a playwright and novelist, and his father was at one time an actor. I ...
The four plays in this collection are a representative collection of dramas that exhibits the development of the Jacobean era revenge play. In «The Spanish Tragedy» we find the aftermath of a conflict between the Viceroy of Portugal and the Spanish empire. The death of Spanish officer Andrea prompts Horatio, Andrea's best friend, and Bel-imperia, who was in love with Andrea against her family's wishes, to seek revenge against Andrea&ap ...
