Download or read book British Playwrights 1880 1956 written by William W. Demastes and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 1996-12-09 with total page 470 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From 1880 to 1956, when John Osborne transformed the British theater world with Look Back in Anger, British playwrights made numerous lasting contributions and provided a foundation for the innovations of dramatists during the latter half of the 20th century. This reference profiles the life and work of some 40 British playwrights active during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many of whom are also known for their work as novelists and poets. Included are figures such as W. H. Auden, Max Beerbohm, Noel Coward, T. S. Eliot, John Galsworthy, Graham Greene, D. H. Lawrence, W. Somerset Maugham, George Bernard Shaw, and Oscar Wilde. Each entry provides a biographical overview; a list of major plays and summaries of their critical reception; a list of minor plays, adaptations, and productions; an assessment of the playwright's career; and archival and bibliographical information. Included in this reference book are alphabetically arranged entries for some 40 British playwrights active from 1880 through 1956. Entries are written by expert contributors, with each entry providing a biographical overview; a list of major plays, premieres, and significant revivals, along with a summary of the critical reception of these works; a listing of additional plays, adaptations, and productions; an assessment of the playwright's career and contributions, with reference to published evaluations in magazines, journals, dissertations, and books; a listing of locations housing unpublished archival material, if available; a selected bibliography of the dramatist's published plays and of essays and articles by the playwright on aspects of the theater; a selected bibliography of secondary sources; and, when available, a listing of previously published bibliographies on the playwright.
Download or read book The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham written by Selina Hastings and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-07-01 with total page 914 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: He was a brilliant teller of tales, one of the most widely read authors of the twentieth century, and at one time the most famous writer in the world, yet W. Somerset Maugham’s own true story has never been fully told. At last, the truth is revealed in a landmark biography by the award-winning writer Selina Hastings. Granted unprecedented access to Maugham’s personal correspondence and to newly uncovered interviews with his only child, Hastings portrays the secret loves, betrayals, integrity, and passion that inspired Maugham to create such classics as The Razor’s Edge and Of Human Bondage. Portrayed in full for the first time is Maugham’s disastrous marriage to Syrie Wellcome, a manipulative society woman who trapped Maugham with a pregnancy and an attempted suicide. Hastings also explores Maugham’s many affairs with men, including his great love, Gerald Haxton, an alcoholic charmer. Maugham’s work in secret intelligence during two world wars is described in fascinating detail—experiences that provided the inspiration for the groundbreaking Ashenden stories. From the West End to Broadway, from China to the South Pacific, Maugham’s remarkably productive life is thrillingly recounted as Hastings uncovers the real stories behind such classics as Rain, The Painted Veil, Cakes & Ale, and other well-known tales.
Download or read book The Circle written by William Somerset Maugham and published by . This book was released on 1921 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Straight Acting written by Sean O'Connor and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2016-10-06 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between the trials of Oscar Wilde in the 1890s and the beginnings of legal reforms in the 1960s, the West End stage was dominated by the work of gay playwrights. Many of their plays, such as Private Lives, Blithe Spirit and The Deep Blue Sea are established classics and continue to inform our culture. In this fascinating book, covering both familiar and lesser-known works, Sean O'Connor examines the legacy of Wilde as a playwright and as a gay man, and explores in the works of Somerset Maugham, Noel Coward and Terence Rattigan the resonance of Wilde's agenda for tolerance and his creed of individuality. O'Connor contextualises these plays against the enormous social and historical changes of the twentieth century. He also examines the legal restrictions which regulated the personal lives of these writers and required them to evolve sophisticated strategies in order to express on stage, albeit obliquely, their dilemmas as gay men. From the delicate homoerotic frissons of Rattigan's early comedies to Coward's defiantly pro-sex stance, Straight Acting is a provocative and witty insight into the subtly subversive tactics of gay writers working in that apparently most conservative of forms, the 'well-made play'.
Download or read book The Sexual Revolution in Modern English Literature written by Ch.I. Glicksberg and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-03-09 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The study of its literature is a useful guide to the degree of sexual security existing in a culture. ' When a future historian comes to treat of the social taboos of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in a fourteen-volume life-work, his theories of the existence of an enormous secret language of bawdry and an immense oral literature of obscene stories and rhymes known, in various degrees of initiation, to every man and woman in the country, yet never consigned to writing or openly admitted as existing, will be treated as a chimerical notion by the enlightened age in which he writes. ' If I were asked to name some characteristics typical of the mid-20th century, I would put first the uncritical worship of money, the spread of nationalism, the tyranny of the orgasm, the homosexual protest and the apotheosis of snobbery. Money, sex, and social climbing motivate society. " The English are, on the whole, an inhibited people. They have a basic prudery and gaucheness in sex matters which sets them apart from almost every other nation in Europe . . . . In England, the realisation that many of the restraints and taboos of Victorian times are unnatural and even psychologically harmful, combined with the decline of organized religion, has led to a considerable laxity in sex matters, particularly since World War II! 1.
Download or read book English Drama 1900 1930 written by Allardyce Nicoll and published by Jones & Bartlett Learning. This book was released on 2009 with total page 1112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Pocket Guide to Plays Playwrights written by Maureen Hughes and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2009-03-19 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Everything you need to know about plays and playwrights in one handy guide by leading expert Maureen Hughes who has had one of her 8 musicals produced in the West End and teaches musical theater. Covering everything from the top playwrights through the centuries to a comprehensive A-Z listing of plays from around the world. Accessibility is a key selling point with factboxes highlighting key or curious facts about the subject.
Download or read book The Revels History of Drama in English Hunt H Richards K Taylor J R 1880 to the present day written by and published by . This book was released on 1978 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The dramatic comedy of William Somerset Maugham written by Ronald Edgar Barnes and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2015-07-24 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Breadwinner written by William Somerset Maugham and published by . This book was released on 1931 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Compendium of World Classical Literature written by John Antonakos and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2016-12-21 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The purpose of this book is to encourage readers to read classical books. By perusing this book and recognizing the names of various noted authors, one will be further inclined to pursue the literature that these authors have composed.
Download or read book Wendy Wasserstein written by Claudia Barnett and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-06-17 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wendy Wasserstein: A Casebook contains in-depth discussions of the playwright's major works, including her recent play 1 An American Daughter. Wasserstein's plays and essays are explored within diverse traditions, including Jewish storytelling, women's writing, and classical comedy. Critical perspectives include feminist, Bakhtinian, and actor/director. Comparisons with other playwrights, such as Rachel Crothers, Caryl Churchill, and Anton Chekhov, provide context and understanding. An interview with the playwright and an annotated bibliography are included.
Download or read book The Reader s Index and Guide written by and published by . This book was released on 1934 with total page 740 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Encyclopedia of British Humorists written by Steven H. Gale and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 1996 with total page 690 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First Published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Download or read book The Encarta Book of Quotations written by Bill Swainson and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2000-09-30 with total page 1360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here are 25,000 quotations drawn from the history, politics, literature, religions, science, and popular culture of the world--ranging from the earliest Chinese sages through Shakespeare to the present day.
Download or read book Modern British Drama The Twentieth Century written by Christopher Innes and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2002-11-28 with total page 604 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher Description
