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George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) is revered as one of the great British dramatists, credited not only with memorable works, but the revival of the then-suffering English theatre. Shaw was born in Dublin, Ireland, left mostly to his own devices after his mother ran off to London to pursue a musical career. He educated himself for the most part, and eventually worked for a real estate agent. This experience founded in him a concern for social injustices, seeing poverty and general unfairness afoot, and would go on to address this in many of his works. In 1876, Shaw joined his mother in London where he would finally attain literary success. He used the stage to deliver messages to his audiences in the hope of bettering society. Shaw's vision was not just to reconcile issues within his society, but to encourage mankind to strive for a sort of perfection close to divinity. He did not ask questions about the present, but envisioned an alternate reality altogether. Contained in this volume are two of Shaw's lesser known works: «O'Flaherty V. C.» and «Overruled».

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Benjamin Jonson (1572-1637) was a Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor, known best for his satirical plays and lyric poems. He worked shortly as an actor in «The Admiral's Men», but soon moved on to writing original plays for the troupe. Jonson's work was primarily in comedies for the public theatres, very few of his tragedies have survived. «Sejanus, His Fall,» is the earliest known attempt by the playwright at tragedy, and although the play is less popular than his comedic works, it is a valuable look at Jonson's view of the repressive totalitarian state. Based on a tragedy about Lucius Aerlius Seianus and the Roman emperor Tiberius, the play does not conform to the archetype of classical tragedy; it spans several months and various locales, and graphically violent scenes are delivered on stage. It has been speculated that the story of the tyrannical emperor and the villainous Sejanus represents James I and his corrupt court.

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Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816) was a man with many roles. He was not only a playwright and poet, but 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. In 1722, the character of Sheridan's intended fiancé was challenged by Captain Thomas Mathews. The result was two duels, the first left both parties unscathed, while the second resulted in bloodshed, though Sheridan was the resounding winner. «A Trip to Scarborough» was first performed on the 24th of February, 1777. It is a sort of censored rendition of John Vanbrugh's «The Relapse».

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"Three Sisters" is Anton Chekhov's dramatic play written in 1900 and first performed in 1901. The story concerns the lives of an aristocratic family, the Prozorovs, who struggle to search for meaning in the modern world. The three sisters, Olga, Masha, and Irina, along with their brother Andrei, are living in a small provincial town, yet they long to return to the urban sophistication of Moscow where they grew up. Chekhov's «Three Sisters» brilliantly depicts the lives and aspirations of the Prozorov family as they struggle to contend with the decline of the privileged class in Russia at the turn of the 20th century. A classic of Russian drama, «Three Sisters» is considered one of Chekhov's major works and remains one of his most popular plays.

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"Heartbreak House" is George Bernard Shaw's 1919 drama that is the story of Mazzini Dunn and his employer, Alfred Mangan, who is about to marry Mazzini's daughter. In these two characters Shaw draws a sharp contrast between the realist Mangan and the idealist Dunn, a contrast that Shaw uses to express the idea that a cultured and leisured Europe was in his opinion drifting towards destruction. A critical commentary of the European upper class is at the heart of this tragic dramatic work.

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George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) is revered as one of the great British dramatists, credited not only with memorable works, but the revival of the then-suffering English theatre. Shaw was born in Dublin, Ireland, left mostly to his own devices after his mother ran off to London to pursue a musical career. He educated himself for the most part, and eventually worked for a real estate agent. This experience founded in him a concern for social injustices, seeing poverty and general unfairness afoot, and would go on to address this in many of his works. In 1876, Shaw joined his mother in London where he would finally attain literary success. «Back the Methuselah» is regarded as Science Fiction, and a sort of commentary on human destiny. It consists of a preface (An Infidel Half Century) and a series of five plays: «In the Beginning: B.C. 4004 (In the Garden of Eden)», «The Gospel of the Brothers Barnabas: Present Day», «The Thing Happens: A.D. 2170», «Tragedy of an Elderly Gentleman: A.D. 3000», and «As Far as Thought Can Reach: A.D. 31,920.»

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Little is known about the life of Thomas Kyd (1558-1594), but we do know that in the early 1580s he was associated with a London theatre company. By 1594 he had completed one of the most famous plays of the 16th century: «The Spanish Tragedy.» At that time, the majority of English drama was stiff, and Kyd's new use of blank verse to present emotions on stage was revolutionary. He took foundations of Roman tragedy—a ghost, revenge and violence—and created a spectacular melodrama that greatly appealed to English audiences. The play's Hieronimo remains one of the most popular tragic characters on the Elizabethan and Jacobean stages, and served as a model for later tragic characters like Shakespeare's Hamlet. Full of allegorical characters and ghosts, onstage murder, suicide, play-within-the-play, real and feigned insanity and a bloody ending, «The Spanish Tragedy» established the popular revenge play and introduced audiences to the excitement of psychological realism.

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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. In 1722, the character of Sheridan's intended fiancé was challenged by Captain Thomas Mathews. The result was two duels, the first left both parties unscathed, while the second resulted in bloodshed, though Sheridan was the resounding winner. «St. Patrick's Day, or The Scheming Lieutenant» was first acted in May 1775 and was written for a charitable cause.

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William Butler Yeats was born near Dublin in 1865, and was encouraged from a young age to pursue a life in the arts. He attended art school for a short while, but soon found that his talents and interest lay in poetry rather than painting. As a writer in nearly every genre but the novel, he was an instrumental figure in the «Irish Literary Revival» of the 20th Century that redefined Irish writing. Yeats was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923, and received honorary degrees from Queen's University (Belfast), Trinity College (Dublin), and the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. «The Dreaming of the Bones» was first published in 1919 and performed in 1931, it was one of the plays that comprised Yeats' «Four Plays for Dancers». Written in the Japanese Noh tradition, performed with masks, the play reflects on a belief that the dead may dream back.

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‘The Duchess of Padua’ is a five-act play by Oscar Wilde which was originally written for actress Mary Anderson in 1883. Due to her rejection of the play, it was not performed. It later appeared in its first publication in German in 1904. Fans of Wilde will delight in this fine play of his.

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