Yeats, Lady Gregory, J.M. Synge, Bernard Shaw, Sean O'Casey, Brendan Behan, Samuel Beckett, and Brian Friel. The texts are fully annotated with explanatory notes on Anglo-Irish usage, place names, historical figures, and literary allusions. "Backgrounds and Criticism" contains almost fifty texts relevant to the twelve plays represented. Included are prefaces by the authors, reports by spectators on original productions, memoirs concerning playwrights and performances, and recent critical assessments by American, British, and Irish scholars. From its collection of documents relevant to the origin of the Irish Literary Revival in the midst of Ireland's republican revolution to the recent formation of the Field Day Company in Northern Ireland, Modern Irish Drama charts the rise and development of one of the most powerful national dramas of the twentieth century. A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included.

    Over and over these poems leave us convinced that we’ve learned something very important and mysterious, yet we can’t say exactly what.

    The fairy tale-based works of the tortured confessional poet, whose raw honesty and wit in the face of psychological pain have touched thousands of readers.

    White asks uncomfortable questions about the lived reality of womanhood in the 21st century, and the fear that must be internalised in order to find your path through it. White balances vivid storytelling with sharp-witted observations about the horrors of grief, mental illness, and the casual and sometimes hilarious cruelty of life.

     When bride-to-be Harri Ryan ends up at the ER with a panic attack on her wedding day, her twin brother, George, jokes that she's the most glamorous patient there. But this is no joke. It's Harri's second try at the wedding, and when she returns to her Dublin apartment, her fiancé, James, has already packed his belongings. Harri doesn't want to lose him, but she doesn't know how to convince James it won't happen a third time. George, who knows Harri better than anyone, has a hunch there's more to the story than cold feet. He confronts their parents, who are acting strangely -- as if they're hiding a secret. And the truth they reluctantly reveal devastates both twins. Now, not only has Harri lost James, but George's relationship with his partner, Aidan, begins to fall apart, and both twins have to fight to hold on to those they love -- and to themselves. As the world they thought they knew crumbles around them, can Harri and George find a way to pick up the pieces before it's too late? In her newest novel, talented young Irish writer Anna McPartlin paints a rich, multi-textured picture of ordinary people swept up in a scandal they never could have imagined. As Sure as the Sun manages to tickle your funny bone, tug at your heartstrings, and remind you never to give up on love.