Best of
Plays

1951

The King and I


Richard Rodgers - 1951
    Complete vocal score to the classic with all 14 songs, including: Getting to Know You * Hello, Young Lovers * I Whistle a Happy Tune * Shall We Dance? * Something Wonderful * We Kiss in a Shadow * and more.

Six Plays: Peer Gynt / A Doll's House / Ghosts / The Wild Duck / Hedda Gabler / The Master Builder


Henrik Ibsen - 1951
    After writing historical plays and imaginative epic dramas in verse, such as Peer Gynt, Ibsen turned away from history and romanticism to focus instead on the problems of the individual and modern society. The plays of his middle period—A Doll’s House, Ghosts, The Wild Duck, and his most popular play, Hedda Gabler—are masterpieces of stark psychological realism. In his final plays, including The Master Builder, Ibsen mixed realism and symbolism to enrich his examination of our subconscious drives and urges. Ibsen was criticized and denounced during his lifetime for expanding the boundaries of what is acceptable fare for the stage. Audiences were shocked when he wrote of feminist yearnings, venereal disease, and the deep emotions that underlie the sadness involved in being human. James Joyce put the criticism in perspective: “Henrik Ibsen is one of the world’s great men before whom criticism can make but feeble show. . . . When the art of a dramatist is perfect the critic is superfluous.” Ibsen has since come to be considered one of our greatest playwrights. Six Plays by Henrik Ibsen is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: •New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars •Biographies of the authors •Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events •Footnotes and endnotes •Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work •Comments by other famous authors •Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations •Bibliographies for further reading •Indices & Glossaries, when appropriateAll editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works.

Six Great American Plays


Allan Gates Halline - 1951
    The title was changed in 1978. Introduction by Allan G. Halline. Contains: The Emperor Jones, by Eugene O'Neill; Winterset, by Maxwell Anderson; The Man Who Came to Dinner, by George S. Kauffman and Moss Hart; The Little Foxes, by Lillian Hellman; The Glass Menagerie, by Tennessee Williams; Mister Roberts, by Thomas Heggen and Joshua Logan.