The Circle - A Comedy in Three Acts


W. Somerset Maugham - 1921
    It is not what we do; it is what we are that is decisive. People with weak, trivial natures will be unhappy, no matter who they are with, or what they are doing. Instead of improving their character, they will always long for that someone or something or some place to make it all better. Those with stronger characters have a greater chance of happiness no matter what their choices have been.

Justice


John Galsworthy - 1910
    He is viewed as one of the first writers of the Edwardian era; challenging in his works some of the ideals of society depicted in the preceeding literature of Victorian England. He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1932. Notable works include The Forsyte Saga (1906-1921) and its sequels, A Modern Comedy and End of the Chapter. From the Four Winds was Galsworthy's first published work in 1897, a collection of short stories. These, and several subsequent works, were published under the pen name John Sinjohn and it would not be until The Island Pharisees (1904) that he would begin publishing under his own name. His first play, The Silver Box (1906) became a success, and he followed it up with The Man of Property (1906), the first in the Forsyte trilogy. Along with other writers of the time such as Shaw his plays addressed the class system and social issues, two of the best known being Strife (1909) and The Skin Game (1920).

The Philanderer


George Bernard Shaw - 1913
    To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 1417904224.

Born Yesterday: Comedy in 3 Acts


Garson Kanin - 1951
    A "dumb blonde" chorus girl, mistress of a tycoon-gangster diddling in D.C., gets an education from a reporter for The New Republic, and blossoms into a very fair lady.

The Second Mrs Tanqueray


Arthur Wing Pinero - 1893
    Controversial but successful on the London stage, this play reveals the fate of a "notorious woman" in Victorian England.

The Spanish Prisoner & The Winslow Boy


David Mamet - 1999
    His dialogue--abrasive, rhythmic--illuminates a modern aesthetic evocative of Samuel Beckett. His plots--surprising, comic, topical--have evoked comparisons to masters from Alfred Hitchcock to Arthur Miller. Here are two screenplays demonstrating the astounding range of Mamet's talents.         The Spanish Prisoner, a neo-noir thriller about a research-and-development cog hoodwinked out of his own brilliant discovery, demonstrates Mamet's incomparable use of character in a dizzying tale of twists and mistaken identity. The Winslow Boy, Mamet's revisitation of Terence Rattigan's  classic 1946 play, tells of a thirteen-year-old boy accused of stealing a five-shilling postal order and the tug of war for truth that ensues between his middle-class family and the Royal Navy. Crackling with wit, intelligent and surprising, The Spanish Prisoner and The Winslow Boy celebrate Mamet's unique genius and our eternal fascination with the extraordinary predicaments of the common man.

I Have Been Here Before


J.B. Priestley - 1939
    Set in a rural inn in Yorkshire, three people enter a strange confrontation with the hallmarks of déjà vu, and a physicist attempts to prevent a disaster.

Private Lives


Noël Coward - 1930
    Elyot and Amanda, once married and now honeymooning with new spouses at the same hotel, meet by chance, reignite the old spark and impulsively elope. After days of being reunited, they again find their fiery romance alternating between passions of love and anger. Their aggrieved spouses appear and a roundelay of affiliations ensues as the women first stick together, then apart, and new partnerships are formed.

Magic: A Fantastic Comedy In a Prelude and Three Acts


G.K. Chesterton - 1913
    This play was originally presented under the management of Kenelm Foss at The Little Theatre, London, on November 7, 1913.

Once in a Lifetime


Moss Hart - 1960
    (doubling possible.) / 5 ints. or unit set. Recently revived on Broadway to great acclaim, this is the rollicking tale of three down and out troupers who decide to head for Hollywood and try their luck with the newly invented talkies. Due to a series of consistent blunders, the most stupid of the three is carried to pinnacles of fame and fortune until he's literally made a god of the industry. It's a fast paced and wild romp and a marvelous spoof of tinsel land.

There Are Crimes and Crimes


August Strindberg - 1899
    Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.

The Firm of Girdlestone


Arthur Conan Doyle - 1890
    He is most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, which are generally considered a major innovation in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger. He was a prolific writer whose other works include science fiction stories, historical novels, plays and romances, poetry, and non-fiction. His first significant work was A Study in Scarlet, which appeared in Beeton's Christmas Annual for 1887 and featured the first appearance of Sherlock Holmes, who was partially modelled after his former university professor, Joseph Bell. Other works include The Firm of Girdlestone (1890), The Captain of the Polestar (1890), The Doings of Raffles Haw (1892), Beyond the City (1892), The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892), The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard (1896), The Great Boer War (1900), The Green Flag (1900), The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902), and The Lost World (1912).

She Stoops to Conquer


Oliver Goldsmith - 1773
    Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

The Romantic Adventures Of A Milkmaid


Thomas Hardy - 1896
    With one hand he was tightly grasping his forehead, the other hung over his knee. The attitude bespoke with sufficient clearness a mental condition of anguish. He was quite a different being from any of the men to whom her eyes were accustomed. She had never seen mustachios before, for they were not worn by civilians in Lower Wessex at this date.

The Two-Character Play


Tennessee Williams - 1979
    "I think it is my most beautiful play since Streetcar," Tennessee Williams said, "and I've never stopped working on it....It is a cri de coeur, but then all creative work,all life, in a sense is a cri de coeur."In the course of its evolution, several earlier versions of The Two-Character Play have been produced. The first of them was presented in 1967 in London and Chicago and brought out in 1969 by New Directions in a signed limited edition. The next, staged in 1973 in New York under the title Out Cry, was published by New Directions in 1973 The third version (New York, 1975), again titled The Two-Character Play, is the one Tennessee Williams wished to include in New Directions' The Theatre of Tennessee Williams series. It is this version which is presented in this ND paperback.