Drama Books

HALL-MARKED The scene is the sitting-room and verandah of HER bungalow. The room is pleasant, and along the back, where the verandahruns, it seems all window, both French and casement. There is adoor right and a door left. The day is bright; the timemorning. [HERSELF, dripping wet, comes running along the verandah,through the French window, with a wet Scotch terrier in herarms. She vanishes through the... more...

THE BIG DRUM   THE FIRST ACT The scene is a room, elegantly decorated, in a flat in South Audley Street. On the right, two windows give a view, through muslin curtains, of the opposite houses. In the wall facing the spectator are two doors, one on the right, the other on the left. The left-hand door opens into the room from a dimly-lighted corridor, the door on the right from the dining-room. Between... more...

THERE ARE CRIMES AND CRIMES INTRODUCTION Strindberg was fifty years old when he wrote "There Are Crimes and Crimes." In the same year, 1899, he produced three of his finest historical dramas: "The Saga of the Folkungs," "Gustavus Vasa," and "Eric XIV." Just before, he had finished "Advent," which he described as "A Mystery," and which was published... more...

SCENE I. The Royal Gardens in Aranjuez. CARLOS and DOMINGO. DOMINGO.Our pleasant sojourn in AranjuezIs over now, and yet your highness quitsThese joyous scenes no happier than before.Our visit hath been fruitless. Oh, my prince,Break this mysterious and gloomy silence!Open your heart to your own father's heart!A monarch never can too dearly buyThe peace of his own son—his only son.[CARLOS looks... more...

Mrs. Edward Roberts: "Now, my dear, Amy and I will get there early, so as to make up for your coming a little late, but you must be there for the last half, at least. I would excuse you altogether if I could, for I know you must be dead tired, up all night, that way, on the train, but Mrs. Miller is one of those people who never can listen to reason, and she would take deadly offence if you missed... more...

INTRODUCTION. HE author and early date of the present Comedy are ascertained by a quotation in Sir Thomas Wilson’s Rule of Reason of Roister Doister’s letter to Dame Custance. The first edition of the Rule of Reason, 1550-1, is a very scarce work; of which I have been unable to see a copy. The second edition, 1552, 8vo, ‘newely corrected by Thomas Wilson,’ has not the quotation: which... more...

INTRODUCTION. Little Eyolf was written in Christiania during 1894, and published in Copenhagen on December 11 in that year. By this time Ibsen's correspondence has become so scanty as to afford us no clue to what may be called the biographical antecedents of the play. Even of anecdotic history very little attaches to it. For only one of the characters has a definite model been suggested. Ibsen... more...

MR. AND MRS. EDWARD ROBERTS; THE CHOREWOMAN Mrs. Roberts, with many proofs of an afternoon's shopping in her hands and arms, appears at the door of the ladies' room, opening from the public hall, and studies the interior with a searching gaze, which develops a few suburban shoppers scattered over the settees, with their bags and packages, and two or three old ladies in the rocking-chairs. The... more...

You once asked me why I did not write a Don Juan play. The levity with which you assumed this frightful responsibility has probably by this time enabled you to forget it; but the day of reckoning has arrived: here is your play! I say your play, because qui facit per alium facit per se. Its profits, like its labor, belong to me: its morals, its manners, its philosophy, its influence on the young, are... more...

PREFACE. The main rules which we proposed to ourselves in undertaking this Edition are as follows: 1. To base the text on a thorough collation of the four Folios and of all the Quarto editions of the separate plays, and of subsequent editions and commentaries. 2. To give all the results of this collation in notes at the foot of the page, and to add to these conjectural emendations collected and... more...