All

For over half a millennium, The Divine Comedy has inspired writers from Shakespeare to Beckett. Dante's epic journey - out of the raging inferno to the gates of paradise -...

Sean O' Casey's Irish plays, among them "Juno and the Paycock", arguably place him amongst the great playwrights of the 20th century. This book explores the myth of O'Casey's slum...

Here is a poetry collection sure to delight and inspire the adventurous traveler and the armchair dreamer alike. As pilgrims, missionaries and explorers, as soldiers, diplomats, merchants and tourists, the...

Bread and circuses were what the Romans demanded of their emperors, and for more than 500 years spectacular events in amphitheaters, circuses, and theaters were the most important leisure activities...

Frank Hardy is perhaps Australia's most famous Communist writer. In his literary biography on Frank Hardy, author Paul Adams traces the relationship between Hardy's writings, his political activism and the...

'At last I read her books, reminding myself to breathe, wondering if her characters could extricate themselves from her finely spun web of psychological torment. I seized my chance to...

First published in 1980, Isherwood's overlooked last book is central to an understanding of his life and work. WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY SIMON CALLOW In 1939, as Europe approaches...

A fascinating collection of memorial addresses on celebrated lives including WH Auden by Stephen Spender, Peter Cook by Alan Bennett, Kingsley Amis by Martin Amis, Stanley Matthews by Jimmy Armfield,...

Describes James's childhood in New York in the mid-nineteenth century, his illnesses, sexual encounters, and early loves, and follows his development as a writer culminating with his masterpiece The Portrait...

The first book to explore the extraordinary story of the legendary friendship - and quarrel - between Wordsworth and Coleridge, two giants of English Romanticism. Wordsworth and Coleridge's passionate intimacy,...

"The doctor suddenly appeared beside Will, startling him. Though he smiled reassuringly, the poet noticed that he kept a safe distance. In a soothing, urbane voice, he explained the treatment:...

The Worlds of Jane Austen invites readers to see one of Britain's most beloved authors in a completely new light. Far from the quiet world of country houses and tea...

In a series of readings of Sophocles, Holderlin, Baudelaire, Nietzsche and Benjamin, Rainer Nagele investigates the extraordinary territory that lies not merely between texts but also between languages - in...

This Student Edition of Brecht's anti-war masterpiece features an extensive introduction and commentary that includes a plot summary, discussion of the context, themes, characters, style and language as well as...

A provocative dual biography of Leo and Sonya Tolstoy offers an illuminating anecdotal study of a long and stormy marriage between two remarkable individuals and the impact of their complex...

This work starts with an Introduction by J.H. Stape, St Mary's University College, Strawberry Hill. First published in 1909, "The Man Shakespeare and his Tragic Life" is a lively biography...

Addressing the history of the production and reception of the great medieval poem, Piers Plowman, Lawrence Warner reveals the many ways in which scholars, editors and critics over the centuries...

This study investigates the importance of theatre in the works of Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, William Dean Howells, Louisa May Alcott and Henry James. Whether as critics, playwrights, actors or...

This comprehensive and authoritative edition of the correspondence of Daniel Defoe situates each letter in its biographical, literary, and historical contexts. A unique source for a turbulent period of British...

In the tradition of Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress comes an earthy, wildly imaginative and tragi-comic love story set in a remote mountain village in northwestern China. Xiezi (meaning...

Written in defiance of Jeremy Collier and the budding fashion for sentimental drama, this late Restoration comedy exposes the reformed rake Loveless to the temptations of London and the charms...

Nadine Gordimer began her writing life at a relatively young age. In 1991, that life received the ultimate recognition when she was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. In this...

Performing the American Frontier, 1870-1906 examines how the American frontier was presented in theatrical productions during the critical period from the end of the Civil War to the beginning of...

This is an illustrated history of the performance and reception of Shakespeare's plays on the German stage from the English Comedians in the late sixteenth century to the First World...

Susan Glaspell in Context not only discusses the dramatic work of this key American author -- perhaps best known for her short story "A Jury of Her Peers" and its...

Part of the Everyman series which has been re-set with wide margins for notes and easy-to-read type. Each title includes a themed introduction by leading authorities on the subject, life-and-times...

From the author of the bestselling memoir Reading Lolita in Tehran comes a powerful and passionate case for the vital role of fiction today. Ten years ago, Azar Nafisi electrified...

Provides illuminating answers to many questions: why did Sophocles develop character-drawing? How and why does it differ from that of Aeschylus? Why are some of Euripides' plots so bad and...

Sir John Falstaff is, without doubt, a rogue. True, he is fat, jolly, and in a way lovable, but he is still a rogue. His men rob and plunder the...

Offering a political critique of Shakespeare's writings and the uses they are put to, these essays suggest that the activity of criticism is itself a site for political intervention.

This third book in a new series of magazine-style reviews of the performing arts, presents an introduction to the writers who are helping to shape the future of the British...

This text focuses on the cross-cultural experience, arguing that Shakespeare reinterprets, refashions, and reinscribes stage aliens such as Jews, Moors, Amazons, and gypsies and thus interrogates a Eurocentric perspective and...

This book examines the flight of young Australian writers to London in the decades before and after Federation in 1901. Peter Morton studies how their careers were shaped by shifting...

What can the printed texts of plays from Shakespeare's time say about performance? How have printed plays been read and interpreted? This collection of essays considers the evidence of early...

Now a mother herself, Harrison has written a memoir about the ties that bind mothers to their children - and the forces that can drive them apart. She reveals the...

Containing many paintings, and a collection of his words on love, this title is aimed at lovers of Shakespeare and to also people in love.

beaurocrats who blocked him at every turn, and after a hopelessly unsuccessful marriage he was murdered in a dual aged 37.

Includes the plays Sladek and A Sexual Congress plus an introduction by Penny Black Set in the inter-war period of raging inflation in Germany, these two plays portray the losers...

Randolph Stow was one of the great Australian writers of his generation. His novel To the Islands - written in his early twenties after living on a remote Aboriginal mission...

The 1590s were black years for England. The queen was old, the succession unclear, and the treasury empty after decades of war. Amid the rising tension, William Shakespeare published a...

Limited stock available, purchase direct from Currency Press. The prominence and vehemence of public debate about Hannie Rayson's Two Brothers has renewed the public interest in the power of contemporary...