Drama : English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh

A detailed examination of Beckett's dramas based on reductionist models in the arts and sciences. Various experimental aspects of composition and production are shown to reflect Beckett’s search for a minimal theater of silence and inaction, as well as his epistemological uncertainty. more...

Price: $59.50

This is an electronic edition of the complete book complemented by author biography. ***********. A Room of One''s Own is an extended essay by Virginia Woolf. First published during 24 October 1929, it was based on a series of lectures she delivered at Newnham College and Girton College, two women''s colleges at Cambridge University in 1928. The essay examines whether women were capable of producing work of the quality of William Shakespeare, amongst other topics. In one section, Woolf invented a fictional character Judith "Shakespeare''s Sister", to illustrate that a woman with Shakespeare''s gifts would have been denied the same opportunities to develop them because of the doors that were closed to women. Woolf also examines the careers of several female authors, including Aphra Behn, Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters and George Eliot. The author subtly refers to several of the most prominent intellectuals of the time, and her hybrid name for the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge—Oxbridge—has become a well-known term in English satire, although she was not the first to use it. The title comes from Woolf''s conception that, ''a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction'' (page 4). It also refers to any author''s need for poetic license and the personal liberty to create art. — Excerpted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. . more...

Price: $3.99

This is an electronic edition of the complete book complemented by author biography. ************. Roxana: The Fortunate Mistress is a 1724 novel by Daniel Defoe. The full full title of the novel is Roxana: The Fortunate Mistress Or, a History of the Life and Vast Variety of Fortunes of Mademoiselle de Beleau, Afterwards Called the Countess de Wintselsheim. The novel concerns the story of an unnamed "fallen woman", the second time Defoe created such a character (the first was a similar female character in Moll Flanders). In Roxana, a woman who takes on various pseudonyms, including "Roxana," describes her fall from wealth thanks to abandonment by a "fool" of a husband and movement into prostitution upon his abandonment. — Excerpted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. . more...

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Identifies and explores the sacred as both an element in theatre and in consciousness in general. This book examines not only the structural understandings and functions of the sacred in theatre, but also experimental and personal experiences. more...

Price: $10.00

This is an electronic edition of the complete book complemented by author biography. ***********. The Scarlet Pimpernel is a classic play and adventure novel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy, set during the Reign of Terror following the French Revolution. It was first produced as a record-breaking play in an adaptation by Julia Neilson and Fred Terry. The play first opened on 15 October 1903 at Nottingham’s Theatre Royal; it was not a success. But Terry had confidence in the play and, with a rewritten last act, he took it to London where it opened at the New Theatre on 5 January 1905. The standing ovation of the first night audience proved him right, but the critics were unimpressed. The London critics criticized it as old-fashioned. Despite that, the play became a popular success. It began a run of 122 performances and numerous revivals, becoming a favourite of the London audiences — playing more than 2000 performances, one of the most popular shows ever staged in an English theatre. The novel was published soon after the play''s opening and was an immediate success. Orczy gained a following of readers in England and throughout the world. With the demand high, she wrote a number of sequels over the next 35 years. — Excerpted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. . more...

Price: $3.99