When first published in 1899, The Awakening shocked readers with its honest treatment of female marital infidelity. Audiences accustomed to the pieties of late Victorian romantic fiction were taken ab…
Together in this volume are two plays by the Scandinavian geniuses of modern drama, which focus on a single theme--the reality of death. Translated and edited by Thaddeus L. Torp, this edition contain…
Written in 1881, when melodrama and farce were still at their peak of popularity, Ibsen’s Ghosts is a three-act tragedy that explores uncomfortable, even forbidden themes. It is also a highly critical…
A three-part reworking of themes from Greek tragedy, the plays are set in New England in 1865, just after the Civil War. A returning victor, General Ezra Mannon (Agamemnon), is poisoned by his unfaith…
A landmark in American literature, presented in its complete and unexpurgated version. Dreiser's unsparing story of a country girl's rise to riches as the mistress of a wealthy man marked the beginnin…
Trifles is a one-act play by Susan Glaspell. Her short story, "A Jury of Her Peers", was adapted from the play a year after its debut. It was first performed by the Provincetown Players at the Wharf T…
First performed at the Moscow Art Theatre in 1901, The Three Sisters probes the lives and dreams of Olga, Masha, and Irina, former Muscovites now living in a provincial town from which they long to es…
Neddy Merrill decides to swim home from a friend's pool party, traveling from fashionable swimming pool to swimming pool on a perfect mid-summer's day. But as night falls and the season begins to chan…
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof first heated up Broadway in 1955 with its gothic American story of brothers vying for their dying father’s inheritance amid a whirlwind of sexuality, untethered in the person of …
The tragedy of the Compson family features some of the most memorable characters in literature: beautiful, rebellious Caddy; the manchild Benjy; haunted, neurotic Quentin; Jason, the brutal cynic; and…
