Volpone


Ben Jonson - 1606
    The plot concerns a wealthy, lecherous old man who feigns a mortal illness in order to solicit bribes from greedy acquaintances who hope to inherit his fortune. Many complexities of plot and connivance ensue, but in the end, the guilty parties are exposed and punished. Explanatory footnotes.

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.

The School for Scandal


Richard Brinsley Sheridan - 1777
    Often referred to as a "comedy of manners", "The School for Scandal" is one Sheridan's most performed plays and a classic of English comedic drama.

Nectar in a Sieve


Kamala Markandaya - 1954
    With remarkable fortitude and courage, she meets changing times and fights poverty and disaster.This beautiful and eloquent story tells of a simple peasant woman in a primitive village in India whose whole life is a gallant and persistent battle to care for those she loves—an unforgettable novel that "will wring your heart out" (The Associated Press).Named Notable Book of 1955 by the American Library Association.

To Build a Fire


Jack London - 1902
    A heartbreaking tale set in the vast wintry landscape of the North, it endures as one of the greatest adventures ever written.

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 Open Boat


Stephen Crane - 1897
    Four men struggle for survival after escaping from a sinking ship and into a small open boat.

Medea


Euripides
    Having married Medea and fathered her two children, Jason abandons her for a more favorable match, never suspecting the terrible revenge she will take. Euripides' masterly portrayal of the motives fiercely driving Medea's pursuit of vengeance for her husband's insult and betrayal has held theater audiences spellbound for more than twenty centuries. Rex Warner's authoritative translation brings this great classic of world literature vividly to life.Reprint of the John Lane, The Bodley Head Limited, London, 1944 edition.

Brighton Beach Memoirs


Neil Simon - 1984
    It is 1937 in Brooklyn during the heart of the Depression. Fifteen-year-old Eugene Jerome lives in Brighton Beach with his family. He is witty, perceptive, obsessed with sex, and forever fantasizing his baseball-diamond triumphs as star pitcher for the New York Yankees. As our guide through his "memoirs," Eugene takes us through a series of trenchant observations and insights that show his family meeting life's challenges with pride, spirit, and a marvelous sense of humor. But as World War II looms ever closer, Eugene sees his own innocence slipping away as the first important era of his life ends—and a new one begins.This semiautobiographical classic was adapted into a film by Simon’s longterm professional partner, Gene Saks, who directed, among many others, Biloxi Blues, The Odd Couple, Broadway Bound, and Lost in Yonkers.

Beowulf


Unknown
    The poem was inspired by Germanic and Anglo-Saxon oral tradition recounting the exploits of Beowulf, the hero who gave his name to the poem. Here, it's transcribed as a verse epic, onto which are grafted Christian additions.

Look Back in Anger


John Osborne - 1957
    He browbeats his flatmate, terrorizes his wife, and is not above sleeping with her best friend-who loathes Jimmy almost as much as he loathes himself. Yet this working-class Hamlet, the original Angry Young Man, is one of the most mesmerizing characters ever to burst onto a stage, a malevolently vital, volcanically articulate internal exile in the dreary, dreaming Siberia of postwar England.First produced in 1956, Look Back in Anger launched a revolution in the English theater. Savagely, sadly, and always impolitely, it compels readers and audiences to acknowledge the hidden currents of rottenness and rage in what used to be called "the good life."

O scrisoare pierdută


Ion Luca Caragiale - 1884
    It premiered in 1884, and arguably represents the high point of his career.

Under Milk Wood


Dylan Thomas - 1954
    A moving and hilarious account of a spring day in a small Welsh coastal town, Under Milk Wood is "lyrical, impassioned and funny, an Our Town given universality" (The New Statesman and Nation).

Our Town


Thornton Wilder - 1938
    This Pulitzer Prize-winning drama of life in the small village of Grover's Corners, an allegorical representation of all life, has become a classic. It is Thornton Wilder's most renowned and most frequently performed play.

Here in Our Auschwitz and Other Stories


Tadeusz Borowski - 1946
    What he experienced in the camp left him convinced that no one who survived Auschwitz was innocent. All were complicit; the camp regime depended on this. Borowski’s tales present the horrors of the camp as reflections of basic human nature and impulse, stripped of the artificial boundaries of culture and custom. Inside the camp, the strongest of the prisoners form uneasy alliances with their captors and one another, watching unflinchingly as the weak scrabble and struggle against their inevitable fate. In the last analysis, suffering is never ennobling and goodness is tantamount to suicide. Bringing together for the first time in English Borowski’s major writings and many previously uncollected works, this is the most complete collection of stories in a new, authoritative translation, with a substantial foreword by Timothy Snyder that speaks to its enduring relevance.