Two years later it was revived by Nemirovich-Danchenko at the newly-founded Moscow Art Theatre with Stanslasky as Trigorin and was an immediate success. Checkhov's description of the play was characteristically self-mocking: "A comedy - 3F, 6M, four acts, rural scenery (a view over a lake); much talk of literature, little action, five bushels of love".Michael Frayn's translation was commissioned by the Oxford Playhouse Company.

    

     It's you I love, perfect man, Greek God, my own; but I know you'll go, betray me, strayfrom home.So better by far for me if you were stone.—from "Medusa"Stunningly original and haunting, the voices of Mrs. Midas, Queen Kong, and Frau Freud, to say nothing of the Devil's Wife herself, startle us with their wit, imagination, and incisiveness in this collection of poems written from the perspectives of the wives, sisters, or girlfriends of famous—and infamous—male personages. Carol Ann Duffy is a master at drawing on myth and history, then subverting them in a vivid and surprising way to create poems that have the pull of the past and the crack of the contemporary.

    On the one hand it describes King Alfred's battle against the Danes in 878. On the other hand it is a timeless allegory about the ongoing battle between Christianity and the forces of nihilistic heathenism. Filled with colorful characters, thrilling battles and mystical visions, it is as lively as it is profound. Chesterton incorporates brilliant imagination, atmosphere, moral concern, chronological continuity, wisdom and fancy. He makes his stanzas reverberate with sound, and hurries his readers into the heart of the battle. This deluxe volume is the definitive edition of the poem. It exactly reproduces the 1928 edition with Robert Austin's beautiful woodcuts, and includes a thorough introduction and wonderful endnotes by Sister Bernadette Sheridan, from her 60 years researching the poem."When Chesterton writes poetry, he excels like no other modern writer. The rhyme, rhythm, alliteration and imagery are a complete joy to the ear. But The Ballad of the White Horse is not just a poem. It is a prophecy." —Dale Ahlquist, President, The American Chesterton Society"Not only a charming poem and a great tale, this is a keystone work of Christian literature that will be read long after most of the books of our era are forgotten." —Michael O'Brien, Author, Father Elijah

    This brief edition of the most widely adopted book of its kind offers all of the editorial features of the longer book with about half the stories and writer commentaries in a shorter, less expensive format.

    Warren is a madam, proprietress of a string of successful brothels. Her daughter, Vivie, is a modern young woman, but not so modern that she's not shocked to discover the source of her mother's wealth. The clash of these two strong-willed, but culturally constrained Victorian women, is the spark that ignites the ironic wit of one of George Bernard Shaw's greatest plays, in a withering critique of male domination, sexual hypocrisy, and societal convention. Initially banned after its 1893 publication due to its startling frankness, Mrs. Warren's Profession remains a powerful work of progressive theater.

    The book's jacket design and page illustrations were by her sister, artist Vanessa Bell. More than sixty years later, The Hogarth Press at Chatto & Windus has published a lovely facsimile of that prized edition of 'Kew Gardens'. The lush and haunting story circles around Kew Gardens one hot day in July, as various odd and interesting couples walk by and talk, exchanging words but letting thoughts and memories float languorously above the glossy leaves and exotic blooms, while at their feet, a determined snail makes its way slowly across a mountainous flower bed. Elegantly produced, a precise replica of that 1927 special edition, with Vanessa Bell's jacket and decorative drawings, this is a rare treat for Bloomsbury devotees and all who love beautiful books.

    Two of the most admired of these — "Bartleby" and "Benito Cereno" — first appeared as magazine pieces and were then published in 1856 as part of a collection of short stories entitled The Piazza Tales."Bartleby" (also known as "Bartleby the Scrivener") is an intriguing moral allegory set in the business world of mid-19th-century New York. A strange, enigmatic man employed as a clerk in a legal office, Bartleby forces his employer to come to grips with the most basic questions of human responsibility, and haunts the latter's conscience, even after Bartleby's dismissal."Benito Cereno," considered one of Melville's best short stories, deals with a bloody slave revolt on a Spanish vessel. A splendid parable of man's struggle against the forces of evil, the carefully developed and mysteriously guarded plot builds to a dramatic climax while revealing the horror and depravity of which man is capable.Reprinted here from standard texts in a finely made, yet inexpensive new edition, these stories offer the general reader and students of Melville and American literature sterling examples of a literary giant at his story-telling best.--back cover

    You died before I had time——Marble-heavy, a bag full of God, Ghastly statue with one gray toe Big as a Frisco sealAnd a head in the freakish Atlantic Where it pours bean green over blue In the waters off beautiful Nauset. I used to pray to recover you.Ach, du.In the German tongue, in the Polish town Scraped flat by the rollerOf wars, wars, wars.But the name of the town is common. My Polack friendSays there are a dozen or two. So I never could tell where you Put your foot, your root,I never could talk to you.The tongue stuck in my jaw.It stuck in a barb wire snare. Ich, ich, ich, ich,I could hardly speak.I thought every German was you. And the language obsceneAn engine, an engineChuffing me off like a Jew.A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen. I began to talk like a Jew.I think I may well be a Jew.The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna Are not very pure or true.With my gipsy ancestress and my weird luck And my Taroc pack and my Taroc packI may be a bit of a Jew.I have always been scared of you,With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo. And your neat mustacheAnd your Aryan eye, bright blue.Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You——Not God but a swastikaSo black no sky could squeak through. Every woman adores a Fascist, The boot in the face, the brute Brute heart of a brute like you.You stand at the blackboard, daddy, In the picture I have of you,A cleft in your chin instead of your foot But no less a devil for that, no not Any less the black man whoBit my pretty red heart in two.I was ten when they buried you. At twenty I tried to dieAnd get back, back, back to you.I thought even the bones would do.But they pulled me out of the sack, And they stuck me together with glue. And then I knew what to do.I made a model of you,A man in black with a Meinkampf lookAnd a love of the rack and the screw. And I said I do, I do.So daddy, I’m finally through.The black telephone’s off at the root, The voices just can’t worm through.If I’ve killed one man, I’ve killed two——The vampire who said he was you And drank my blood for a year,Seven years, if you want to know.Daddy, you can lie back now.There’s a stake in your fat black heart And the villagers never liked you.They are dancing and stamping on you. They always knew it was you.Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through.

    After devoting their energies and income for ten years to replacing a borrowed diamond necklace which they have lost, a woman and her husband learn the irony of their efforts.

    

    THIS 6 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: Master Thoughts of Master Minds in Poem, Prose and Pencil, by Thomas Gray.

    and was the sensation of that year's theatre season, making front-page headlines and outraging some critics who thought her premise that there was a connection between a rape in a Leeds hotel room and the hellish devastation of civil war was simply an attempt to shock audiences. The questions raised in this play about violence are at the heart of Kane's writing.

    Have you read 'A Clean Well-Lighted Place'?... It is masterly. Indeed, it is one of the best short stories ever written..."

    The names of characters recur throughout the stories, and the stories reference each other (for example, "everything continues as in 'A'"), challenging narrative conventions. In addition, the story explores themes of domesticity, welfare, and success.