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A Cossack Spring
By Catrin Collier. 2014
A hidden past, a dangerous love and a voice to reach across the ages. A brand new title from best-selling…
author Catrin Collier. Allenstein, East Prussia, 1939 - Charlotte von Datski's parents hold a glittering ball to celebrate her eighteenth birthday and announce her engagement to a Prussian count. But Hitler is about to plunge the world into war... Soon, Charlotte will be forced to leave behind her beloved homeland and flee to England carrying a secret that both strengthens and torments her. Years later, Charlotte's granddaughter, Laura, is shocked when the truth about her grandmother's past comes to light. Laura persuades Charlotte to embark on a journey to her childhood home in Eastern Europe. There, as Charlotte re-reads her diary and recalls the one great love of her life, she finally faces the demons that have haunted her for over half a century.Aias
By Sophocles. 2015
Sophocles' play is a famous retelling of Aias's (Ajax's) demise. After the armor is awarded to Odysseus, Aias feels so…
insulted that he wants to kill Agamemnon and Menelaus. Athena intervenes and clouds his mind and vision, and he goes to a flock of sheep and slaughters them, imagining they are the Achaean leaders, including Odysseus and Agamemnon. When he comes to his senses, covered in blood, he realizes that what he has done has diminished his honor, and decides that he prefers to kill himself rather than live in shame.Buchanan Dying
By John Updike. 1974
To the list of John Updike's well-intentioned protagonists--Rabbit Angstrom, George Caldwell, Piet Hanema, Henry Bech--add James Buchanan, seen above as…
a young Congressman in the 1820's, and on the front cover as the harried fifteenth President of the United States (1857-1861). In a play meant to be read, Buchanan's political and private lives are represented as aspects of his spiritual life, whose crowning, condensing act is the act of dying. A wide-ranging Afterword rounds out the dramatic portrait of one of America's lesser known, and least appreciated, leaders.Frankie and Johnny
By John Huston, Miguel Covarrubias. 2015
The ill-fated lovers Frankie and Johnny were already legends by 1930 the year of this illustrated drama s publication…
The unique interpretation is a collaboration between John Huston the future director of The Maltese Falcon and other film classics and Miguel Covarrubias an influential painter and caricaturist Huston who reputedly interviewed a neighbor of the real-life Frankie and Johnny was inspired to adapt the tale of love gone wrong for a puppet show for which George Gershwin supplied musical accompaniment In addition to Huston s script and distinctive images by Covarrubias this edition features the Saint Louis Version of the folktale regarded as the most authentic version as well as 20 variations on the story and songThe Crucible (Penguin Plays)
By Arthur Miller. 1954
A haunting examination of groupthink and mass hysteria in a rural community The place is Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692, an…
enclave of rigid piety huddled on the edge of a wilderness. Its inhabitants believe unquestioningly in their own sanctity. But in Arthur Miller's edgy masterpiece, that very belief will have poisonous consequences when a vengeful teenager accuses a rival of witchcraft--and then when those accusations multiply to consume the entire village. First produced in 1953, at a time when America was convulsed by a new epidemic of witch-hunting, The Crucible brilliantly explores the threshold between individual guilt and mass hysteria, personal spite and collective evil. It is a play that is not only relentlessly suspenseful and vastly moving but that compels readers to fathom their hearts and consciences in ways that only the greatest theater ever can.Tamara
By John Krizanc. 1981
Available for the first time in over thirty years, John Krizanc’s internationally acclaimed play redefined the limits of theatre with…
its haunting tale of art, sex, violence, and political intrigue in Fascist Italy. In the late twenties the poet, war hero, and lothario Gabriele d’Annunzio waits in his opulent villa — a gift from Benito Mussolini in return for his political silence — for the arrival of the artist Tamara de Lempicka, who is to paint his portrait. What follows is a tale of art, sex, violence and the meaning of complicity in an authoritarian state. The action is directed by the reader/audience member, who decides which characters to follow and which narratives to experience. John Krizanc’s masterpiece redefined theatre and won six L.A. Drama Critics Circle Awards, six Dora Mavor Moore Awards, six Drama-Logue Awards, and six Mexican Association of Theatre Critics, and Journalists Awards for its original productions. Now available in a handsome new A List edition, Tamara is an astonishing piece of experimental art and a penetrating look into ethical choices in times of encroaching autocracy.Becoming Belle
By Nuala O'Connor. 2018
'Luminous' SEBASTIAN BARRY'Incandescent characters and mellifluous prose' LISA CAREY'Reminiscent of Edith Wharton at her very best' LIZ NUGENT_________The true story…
of a woman ahead of her time . . . In 1887, Isabel Bilton is the eldest of three daughters of a middle-class military family, growing up in a small garrison town. By 1891 she is the Countess of Clancarty, dubbed "the peasant countess" by the press, and a member of the Irish aristocracy. Becoming Belle is the story of the four years in between, of Belle's rapid ascent and the people that tried to tear her down. Reimagined by a novelist at the height of her powers, Belle is an unforgettable woman. Set against an absorbing portrait of Victorian London, hers is a timeless rags-to-riches story a la Becky Sharpe._________Praise for BECOMING BELLE'Nuala O'Connor has the thrilling ability to step back nimbly and enter the deep dance of time. This is a hidden history laid luminously before us of an exultant Anglo-Irish woman navigating the dark shoals and the bright fields of a life' SEBASTIAN BARRY, award-winning author of The Secret Scripture and Days Without End'Becoming Belle is so mesmerizing you will be distraught when it ends.O'Connor has resurrected a fiery, inexorable woman who rewrites the script on a stage supposedly ruled by men. Sensual, witty, daring, and unapologetically forward.' Lisa Carey, author of The Stolen Child'Belle's determination to live her life on her own terms and in defiance of her times makes her a fascinating subject' Irish Central'Masterful storytelling! I was putty in Nuala O'Connor's hands. She made the unsinkable Belle Bilton and her down-to-earth sister Flo real to me, and brought 1880's London to my living room. Encore! Encore!' Lynn Cullen, bestselling author of Mrs. Poe'A glorious novel in which Belle Bilton and 19th century London are brought roaring to life with exquisite period detail' Hazel Gaynor, New York Times bestselling author of A Memory of Violets'Thoroughly engrossing and entertaining read' Liz Nugent'Thrillingly dramatic and achingly moving and profoundly resonant into this present era' Robert Olen Butler, author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain'O'Connor gently unfolds Belle's tale in a manner that is compelling and disarming. The ambience may be Victorian elegance but the sheer honesty of O'Connor's writing is sensual, authentic and earthy. A delight!' Rose Servitova, author of The Longbourn LettersAntígona
By Sófocles. 2022
Antígona, de Sòfocles, és segurament l’expressió literària antiga més sublim del conflicte humà entre els dictats de la consciència pròpia…
i les lleis establertes pels homes. Creont, rei de Tebes, ha prohibit sepultar el cadàver de Polinices, que s’ha alçat en armes contra ell. Antígona, però, la germana de Polinices, el desobeeix. I el seu acte i les conseqüències terribles que comporta també són l’expressió del sacrifici personal a causa d’un convenciment que, en aquest cas, té la raó de ser en la pietat entre germans. Ressenya:«La lluita per una justícia que està per damunt d'unes lleis concretes, la lluita pels drets no escrits, no legislats, però inherents en la persona humana..., aquest és el tema de l’Antígona. I per això és una de les tragèdies gregues més valorades.»De la introducció de Joan Castellanos i VilaÈdip Rei
By Sófocles. 2022
Molts crítics consideren Èdip Rei l’obra mestra de Sòfocles. Èdip ha esdevingut rei de Tebes, després de vèncer l'Esfinx i…
de casar-se amb Iocasta, vídua del rei Laios. Sense saber-ho, Èdip ha mort el seu pare en una baralla quan tornava de Delfos de consultar l'oracle i s'ha casat amb la seva mare. Una terrible pesta s'ha ensenyorit de Tebes i Èdip cerca les causes de l'infortuni fent una consulta a l'oracle d'Apol·lo a Delfos i també a Tirèsias, el sacerdot endeví de Tebes. La resposta és clara: la pesta s'acabarà quan hagi estat venjada la mort de Laios. Èdip és l'heroi tràgic per antonomàsia: l’home just, intel·ligent, pietós envers els déus, que vol conèixer la veritat pel bé del seu poble, costi el que costi; i que no defalleix en l’intent de descobrir-la, malgrat que, a mesura que s’hi apropa, ja intueix que serà la causa de la seva ruïna. La solució diversa amb què Iocasta i Èdip afrontaran el coneixement de la veritat és també el reflex de dues maneres d’encarar les dificultats vitals.Moise and the World of Reason
By Tennessee Williams. 1975
What's not to like about Tennessee Williams's most forthright work about homosexual love, with its gay figure skaters, runaways, and…
sex? An erotic, sensual, and comic novel that was a generation ahead of its time, Moise and the World of Reason has at its center the need of three people for each other: Lance, the beautiful black figure skater full of love and lust for young men as well as a craving for drugs; the nameless gay young narrator, a runaway writer from Alabama who lives near the piers of New York City's West Village, c. 1975, frantically filling notebooks with his observations; and Moise, a young woman who speaks in riddles and can never finish her paintings or consummate her affairs. The long unavailable Moise and the World of Reason represents a kind of uncensored Williams, radically frank, fully articulated, and deeply tender: a true gem.Antigone
By Sophocles. 2015
Sophocles addresses themes of civil disobedience, fidelity, and love for family; and questions which law is greater: the gods' or…
man's--in this play that challenged many established mores of Ancient Greece.Mary Stuart
By Friedrich Schiller. 2005
“Mary Stuart” is a play that gives us a fictional account of the last days of Mary Queen of Scots.…
In it we are treated to an entirely made up scene in which Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth I meet face to face. And it is the stuff of great drama!Schindler's List: Also Released As Schindler's Ark (Penguin Joint Venture Readers Ser. #Level 6)
By Thomas Keneally. 1982
A stunning novel based on the true story of how German war profiteer and factory director Oskar Schindler came to…
save more Jews from the gas chambers than any other single person during World War II. In this milestone of Holocaust literature, Thomas Keneally, author of Daughter of Mars, uses the actual testimony of the Schindlerjuden--Schindler's Jews--to brilliantly portray the courage and cunning of a good man in the midst of unspeakable evil. Man Booker Prize winnerRichard III: Large Print (First Avenue Classics ™)
By William Shakespeare. 2015
Trouble is brewing for King Edward IV. Edward's youngest brother, Richard, is jealous of Edward's power and influence. Richard will…
do anything to overthrow the king: He manipulates a noblewoman into marrying him. He arranges for his brother Clarence to be executed, then blames Clarence's death on King Edward. After Edward becomes ill and dies, Richard attains the throne through villainous means. But Richard's trail of deception, manipulation, and murder might eventually be the cause of his own downfall. This unabridged edition of the history play written by English playwright William Shakespeare was written around 1592 and first published in 1597.Richard II (First Avenue Classics ™)
By William Shakespeare. 2015
The year is 1398, and the people of England are in a state of unrest. Richard II is not a…
popular king, as he puts his own interests before the interests of his people. Now he's gone a step too far; he has seized the lands and money of his dead uncle. Richard's cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, was meant to be the heir to this inheritance, and he is incensed that Richard has taken what is rightfully his. When Richard leaves for Ireland to fight a war, Henry takes advantage of his cousin's absence. He assembles an army and awaits Richard's return. A tale of rivalries and shifting power structures, this unabridged edition of the history play by English playwright William Shakespeare was written around 1595 and published in 1597.The Life of King Henry V (First Avenue Classics ™)
By William Shakespeare. 2016
In the wake of his father's death, Prince Henry has ascended to the throne as King Henry V. The rebels…
have finally been overthrown and the civil war has ended. Henry continues to distance himself from the disreputable friends of his youth in an effort to gain the respect of his subjects. After a dispute with the French over territory, Henry decides to invade France. The English fight their way across the country in a bloody series of conflicts that culminates in the legendary Battle of Agincourt. Will Henry be able to inspire the vastly outnumbered English soldiers on to victory against the French? First published in 1600, this unabridged version of William Shakespeare's history play is the fourth and final in his tetralogy about the rise of the English royal House of Lancaster.King Henry IV, The First Part (First Avenue Classics ™)
By William Shakespeare. 2016
The year is 1402, and King Henry IV sits uneasily on the throne that he wrested from his predecessor, Richard…
II. King Henry disapproves of his son, Prince Henry, and his habit of hanging around criminals like the witty but dishonest Falstaff. Meanwhile, young "Hotspur" Percy helps his family plot a rebellion to overthrow the king. Civil war is imminent, and the fate of the kingdom will be decided in a great battle at Shrewsbury. Faced with bloodshed, Prince Henry must find it within himself to be the son and heir his father has always wanted him to be. First published in 1598, this unabridged version of William Shakespeare's history play is the second in his tetralogy about the rise of the English royal House of Lancaster.King Henry IV, The Second Part (First Avenue Classics ™)
By William Shakespeare. 2016
In this second part of Henry IV, the Battle of Shrewsbury is over, the rebels temporarily beaten but not defeated.…
Prince Henry defeated "Hotspur" Percy in single combat, but other rebel leaders have taken his place. King Henry, drained by the civil war, is deathly ill. Prince Henry, knowing he must soon assume the throne, tries to distance himself from the rowdy and reprobate friends of his youth, including Falstaff. As rebel forces gather at the Forest of Gaultree and King Henry grows sicker, will Prince Henry be able to prove to his father that he has become worthy of wearing the crown? First published in 1600, this unabridged version of William Shakespeare's history play is the third in his tetralogy about the rise of the English royal House of Lancaster.Saint Joan: A Chronicle Play In Six Scenes And An Epilogue (Penguin Classics Ser.)
By George Bernard Shaw. 2018
The great Irish playwright’s impassioned dramatization of the life and trial of Joan of Arc. Three years after Joan of…
Arc was canonized in 1920, George Bernard Shaw brought to the stage a more complex and human portrayal of the fifteenth-century French martyr, creating one of the theater’s most memorable and enduring female roles. Already renowned for plays such as Pygmalion, The Arms and the Man, and Major Barbara, Shaw presented Saint Joan as “A Chronicle Play in Six Scenes and an Epilogue.” The play begins in February 1429 as a visionary peasant girl feels called to lead a French army against the English in the Hundred Years War in order to install Charles VII, the dauphin, to the throne. Rallying the troops, Joan plays a pivotal role in the siege of Orléans and in the crowning of Charles at Reims Cathedral. The play culminates with Joan’s trial for heresy after she is captured by opposing forces and ultimately condemned and burned at the stake. Through the device of an epilogue, Shaw dramatizes the reevaluation of Joan through a retrial a quarter century after her execution that clears her of heresy to declarations of her as a Christian martyr and ultimately almost five centuries after her death, her canonization as a saint. Shaw’s Joan is an upstart and a rebel—sane, self-assured, proud, courageous, but still with the naivete of the teenager she was—who challenged the conventions of her time as well as those in power. Having exhaustively researched the documents of her trial, Shaw added a preface and series of reflections on Joan to the published text of the play, which offer further insight into a legendary figure who continues to fascinate, intrigue, and provoke a myriad of interpretations, as well as ongoing productions of Shaw’s only tragedy. This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.Thirty Pieces of Silver: A Play in Three Acts
By Howard Fast. 1954
A couple in Washington, DC, is torn apart when a friend is accused of treasonJane and David Graham live upper-middle-class…
lives in mid-century Washington, DC. Jane minds the home with the help of a fulltime maid, and David works at the Treasury Department. But when the FBI visits their house one evening to ask questions about a friend&’s political beliefs, the answers the two give separately cause them both to wonder whether they truly know each other. Soon nothing is certain as the ideological fears plaguing the nation threaten to destroy Jane and David&’s family. Howard Fast&’s first play, Thirty Pieces of Silver was performed in several countries, from Australia to Europe, and offers an insightful look at the destructive power of reactionary politics in America. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Howard Fast including rare photos from the author&’s estate.