George Orwell Omnibus: The Complete Novels: Animal Farm, Burmese Days, A Clergyman's Daughter, Coming up for Air, Keep the Aspidistra Flying, and Nineteen Eighty-Four


George Orwell - 1949
    The complete novels of George Orwell in a single tome - a can't miss for fans and those new to Orwell alike!

The Cocktail Party


T.S. Eliot - 1949
    He has taken the ordinary West End drawing room comedy convention - understatement, upper-class accents and all - and used it as a vehicle for utterly serious ideas.' Observer

First Love, Last Rites


Ian McEwan - 1975
    Taut, brooding, and densely atmospheric, these stories show us the ways in which murder can arise out of boredom, perversity can result from adolescent curiosity, and sheer evil might be the solution to unbearable loneliness. These tales are as horrifying as anything written by Clive Barker or Stephen King, but they are crafted with a lyricism and intensity that compel us to confront our secret kinship with the horrifying.

The Forsyte Saga


John Galsworthy - 1922
    John Galsworthy, a Nobel Prize-winning author, chronicles the ebbing social power of the commercial upper-middle-class Forsyte family through three generations, beginning in Victorian London during the 1880s and ending in the early 1920s.

Happy Birthday, Wanda June


Kurt Vonnegut Jr. - 1970
    When the great hunter Harold Ryan--missing and presumed dead--returns from Africa after eight years, his wife is aghast and his son is enchanted. Vonnegut's attack on phony heroes and male swagger uses some of the funniest dialogue ever created for the stage.

The Pursuit of Love


Nancy Mitford - 1945
    Nancy Mitford's most famous novel, The Pursuit of Love satirizes British aristocracy in the twenties and thirties through the amorous adventures of the Radletts, an exuberantly unconventional family closely modelled on Mitford's own.The Radletts of Alconleigh occupy the heights of genteel eccentricity, from terrifying Lord Alconleigh (who, like Mitford's father, used to hunt his children with bloodhounds when foxes were not available), to his gentle wife, Sadie, their wayward daughter Linda, and the other six lively Radlett children. Mitford's wickedly funny prose follows these characters through misguided marriages and dramatic love affairs, as the shadow of World War II begins to close in on their rapidly vanishing world.

Guys and Dolls


Damon Runyon - 1932
    Take in the atmosphere of the Great White Way in its heyday at a little speakeasy called Good Time Charley's. Here are thirty-two of Damon Runyon's best-loved, most "Runyonesque" stories, each woven around the mobsmen, chorus girls, gamblers, and racetrack hustlers of the Broadway he knew and loved. Runyon captures with an acute eye and ear the colorful lives and language of a bygone era, one that lives on in our imagination—and on stage.

Fallen Angels


Noël Coward - 1925
    A farce with a hilarious drunk scene for two stylish comediennes.

Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human


Harold Bloom - 1998
    A landmark achievement as expansive, erudite, and passionate as its renowned author, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human is the culmination of a lifetime of reading, writing about, and teaching Shakespeare. Preeminent literary critic-and ultimate authority on the western literary tradition-Harold Bloom leads us through a comprehensive reading of every one of the dramatist's plays, brilliantly illuminating each work with unrivaled warmth, wit and insight. At the same time, Bloom presents one of the boldest theses of Shakespearean scholarships: that Shakespeare not only invented the English language, but also created human nature as we know it today.

Roughing It, Part 1.


Mark Twain - 1913
    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

The Hollow: A Play (Acting Edition)


Agatha Christie - 1951
    She had felt that Hercule Poirot should not have been included in the plot, and for the stage she removed him entirely

Three Plays


Ayn Rand - 2005
    The courtroom drama Night of January 16th, famous for its open-ended verdict, is presented here in its definitive text. Also included are two of Rand's unproduced plays, Think Twice, a clever philosophical murder mystery, and Ideal, a bitter indictment of people's willingness to betray their highest values-symbolized by a Hollywood goddess suspected of a crime.

Wessex Poems


Thomas Hardy - 1898
    Wessex was the "partly-real, partly-dream" county that formed the backdrop for most of Hardy's writings—named after an Anglo-Saxon kingdom and modeled on the real counties of Berkshire, Devon, Dorset, Hampshire, Somerset, and Wiltshire. The poems deal with classic Hardy themes of disappointment in love and life, and the struggle to live a meaningful life in an indifferent world. Although Hardy's poetry was not as well received as his fiction, he continued to publish collections until his death, and thanks in part to the influence of Philip Larkin, he is increasingly realized as a poet of great stature.

Educating Rita


Willy Russell - 1980
    It premiered in London, in 1980 and won the Society for West End Theatres (SWET) award for Best Comedy of the Year. It was made into a highly successful film with Michael Caine and Julie Walters and won the 1983 BAFTA award for Best Film.Commentary and notes by Steve Lewis.

Linda Tressel


Anthony Trollope - 1868
    However, the voice of Trollope was unmistakable in this much more somber work, and the true authorship was ultimately unveiled.The heroine, Linda Tressel, is pressured by her religious zealot aunt to marry an unpleasant man she finds repulsive. The story unfolds in some caricature and melodrama, yet remains an interesting study of Victorian social mores and relationships.