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Our Town was first produced and published in 1938 to wide acclaim. This Pulitzer Prize-winning drama of life in the town of Grover's Corners, an allegorical representation of all life, has become a classic. It is Thornton Wilder's most renowned and most frequently performed play. It is now reissued in this handsome hardcover edition, featuring a new Foreword by Donald Margulies, who writes, "You are holding in your hands a great American play. Possibly...
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Passions unleashed cause much wooing and confusion in the magical woods of Athens. Whether real or induced by magical potions seems to mak little difference, showing that love is far from rational, though those afflicted might feel otherwise. A Midsummer night's dream is a delightful comedy that offers something for everyone. The intertwined love constellations include Hermia and Lysander, who having decided to elope, steal away into the forest. Demetrius,...
23) Cymbeline
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Performed as early as 1611 and published in the "First Folio" in 1623, Shakespeare's "Cymbeline" weaves an elaborate tale of palatial envy and power in Ancient Britain. Cymbeline, King of Britain, commands that his lovely young daughter Imogen marry Cloten, the violent and callous son of the current Queen by her former husband. With her heart already promised to the poor yet heroic Posthumus, Imogen refuses. Disgusted at the prospect of his daughter...
25) King John
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First published in the "First Folio" in 1623 and likely written in the 1590s, "King John" is one of William Shakespeare's best historical plays. It centers on the events of King John's reign of England during the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. King John, son of Henry I of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine, inherits the throne after the death of his older brother, King Richard I. John's claim to the throne is challenged by the King of...
26) Twelfth night
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Set in a topsy-turvy world like a holiday revel, this comedy devises a romantic plot around separated twins, misplaced passions, and mistaken identity. Juxtaposed to it is the satirical story of a self-deluded steward who dreams of becoming "Count Malvolio" only to receive his comeuppance at the hands of the merrymakers he wishes to suppress. The two plots combine to create a farce touched with melancholy, mixed throughout with seductively beautiful...
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Planning a school or amateur Shakespeare production? The best way to experience the plays is to perform them, but getting started can be a challenge: The complete plays are too long and complex, while scene selections or simplified language are too limited. "The 30-Minute Shakespeare" is a new series of abridgements that tell the "story" of each play from start to finish while keeping the beauty of Shakespeare's language intact. Specific stage directions...
28) Pygmalion
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Bernard Shaw was born in Dublin, of Protestant stock, in 1856, and died at Ayot St. Lawrence, Herts., in 1950. After a false start in XIX-century fashion as a novelist, he made a reputation as a journalist-critic of books, pictures, music and the drama. Meanwhile he had plunged into the Socialist revival of the eighteen-eighties and come out as one of the leaders who made the Fabian Society famouns, figuring prominently not only as a pamphleteer...
29) Lysistrata
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Along with Sophocles and Euripides, Aristophanes is considered one of the three great Greek playwrights. Only eleven of his nearly forty plays survive in their entirety to this day. Of his extant works Aristophanes's "Lysistrata" is considered one of his finest and one of the truly great comedies from classical antiquity. Central to the work is the vow by the women of Greece to withhold sex from their husbands until they end the brutal war between...
30) Titus Andronicus
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Classic Books Library presents this new beautiful edition of William Shakespeare's play, "Titus Andronicus" (1594). This edition features a specially commissioned new biography of William Shakespeare. Unlike Shakespeare's other plays based on Roman histories, the story of "Titus Andronicus" is a fictional work. The play dramatises the gruesome events that take place in the battle for a nation between the brutal Roman general Titus and his powerful...
31) Romeo y Julieta
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Romeo and Juliet, two teens from opposite sides of feuding families in medieval Verona, spark a tragic chain of events when they fall in love and secretly marry.
32) As you like it
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Set in the exotic forest of Arden, a social comedy and love story based on the rivalry between brothers to inherit their fathers' fortunes.
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Antony and Cleopatra (1607) is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. Inspired by Thomas North's translation of Plutarch's Lives-a series of biographies on influential figures of the ancient world-Shakespeare wrote Antony and Cleopatra sometime between 1599 and 1601. Often considered a sequel of sorts to his earlier play Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra has served as source material for countless film and television adaptations. "Let Rome in Tiber melt,...
34) The tempest
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Presents the annotated text of the darkly humorous play about Prospero, the deposed Duke of Milan, who is exiled to a magical island with his daughter, Miranda; and includes an introduction, an essay on the theatrical world of Shakespeare, and a note on the text used.
35) Julius Caesar
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"A triumphant Caesar enters Rome after defeating the sons of his old enemy, Pompey. Jealousy and fear over Caesar's reforms reveal a brewing conspiracy to assassinate him. As the plot thickens, Caesar's wife is plagued by terrible nightmares and begs him not to go to the Capitol. But Caesar shrugs off her fears and is accompanied to the Senate by the conspirators thus sealing his fate. Caesar's loyal friends rally to avenge his death and preserve...
36) King Richard II
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"Not all the water in the rough rude sea/Can wash the balm off from an anointed king," declares the soon-to-be deposed ruler of this historical drama. Confident in his divine right, Richard II is an ineffective and unpopular king who abuses his power and sows the seeds of his own downfall. Toppled from the throne by Henry, his ambitious cousin, Richard only learns to value kingship after he loses it, achieving a tragic dignity only with his downfall....
37) The alchemist
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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 had a knack for absurdity and hypocrisy, a trait that made him immensely popular in the 17th century Renaissance period. However, his reputation diminished somewhat in the Romantic era, when he began to be unfairly compared to Shakespeare. The Theatre in London had had been denied to "The Admiral's Men" in 1597, but the troupe...
39) King Lear
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Presents the original text of Shakespeare's play side by side with a modern version, discusses the author and the theatre of his time, and provides quizzes and other study activities. Here is a modern version of one of his most brilliantly realized tragedies, this powerful tale of the agin King Lear, his too-rash decisions, and his betrayal at the hands of his own family becomes a powerful, unforgettable tale for today's reader. Modern English...
40) The last juror
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In 1970, one of Mississippi's more colorful weekly newspapers went bankrupt. To the surprise and dismay of many, ownership was assumed by a 23 year-old college dropout, named Willie Traynor. The future of the paper looked grim until a young mother was brutally raped and murdered by a member of the notorious Padgitt family. Willie Traynor reported all the gruesome details and the paper began to prosper. The murderer, Danny Padgitt was tried before...