Eight Modern Plays

This Norton Critical Edition presents some of the most important voices in modern drama and, through the inclusion of supporting materials, places each play in its proper intellectual, artistic, and historical context.

Included here are the complete texts of eight major plays by eight major playwrights: Henrik Ibsen’s The Wild Duck, Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters, George Bernard Shaw’s Candida, August Strindberg’s The Ghost Sonata, Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author,
Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night, Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children, and Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days.

The most accurate and readable translations have been chosen for plays originally in foreign languages, including a new translation of Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author by Anthony Caputi,
based on the definitive Italian text of 1925.

Each play has been carefully annotated for the student reader—foreign words and phrases are translated, allusions beyond the range of general knowledge are explained, and historical material is included as needed.

A comprehensive "Backgrounds and Criticism" section provides supporting materials by each playwright represented—letters, essays, authors’
notes—as well as a broad sampling of critical reviews and interpretations for each play.

A Selected Bibliography is also included.

This Norton Critical Edition presents some of the most important voices in modern drama and, through the inclusion of supporting materials, places each play in its proper intellectual, artistic, and historical context.

Anthony Caputi was Professor of English and Comparative Literature Emeritus at Cornell University, where he taught for thirty-five years.