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From
Santa Monica Press: The
Shakespeare Diaries: A
Fictional Autobiography
Blending
fact with fiction and written in diary form, this unique biography of
Shakespeare encapsulates his life like never before: from his views on
daily events to vivid impressions of the Elizabethan era and his role
within such a world. Delightfully whimsical, this distinctive life
story provides answers to questions such as What was Shakespeare thinking
while he wrote Hamlet? What did he and Ben Jonson talk about when they
were having a drink together? Was there really a "Dark Lady"?
and What might
Shakespeare have said to the formidable Elizabeth I?
Incorporating fragments of lines and phrases from The Bard's
plays and poems, this portrait will seize readers with its fresh,
offbeat approach to the man and his work.
Over fifty pages of fascinating endnotes provide further annotation and
information for readers who want to know even more about Shakespeare's
life, work, and times."
"J.P.
Wearing's The
Shakespeare's Diaries...is
a genuine work of scholarly imagination...a work of prodigious
research, based on all the facts we know about Shakespeare's
life. The book is crammed with fascinating incident...there is much
engaging stuff about his relations with the actors in his company, with
the Dark Lady (Aemilia Lanier) who deceived him with Southampton, and
with such fellow playwrights as Ben Jonson and John Marston...The Diary
is crammed full of plague and deaths and burials, as well as gossip
about the great and the near great, including the Essex Rebellion and
the War of the Theatres. Shakespeare comes across as a mild, gentle,
and generous human being." Robert
Brustein.
The
Shakespeare Diaries is available at Amazon.com.
In the U.K. buy from Amazon.co.uk
or Waterstone's
or your favorite local bookshop.
From the Broadview
Press, Canada:
The
Second Mrs. Tanqueray,
a critical and contextual edition.
The Second Mrs Tanqueray
was the theatrical sensation of the London
stage in 1893. It established Pinero as the leading English dramatist
of serious, "problem" plays, and created a star out of Mrs. Patrick
Campbell in the title role. The play recounts the marriage of a "woman
with a past" and how it fails because of the double standard of
morality applied unequally and hypocritically by Victorian society to
men and women. This edition includes a thoroughly revised text based on
the author's manuscript, prompt copy for the first production, and
published first edition; it also incorporates pertinent stage
directions from the first production. The critical introduction
examines all facets of the play and its production, and the appendices
make accessible a wide variety of hard-to-find contemporary contextual
materials related to the play.
"Although I have known this play for many years, J.P.
Wearing's introduction sheds new light on many interesting
aspects of the piece, which I look forward to teaching afresh with the
benefit of this text. The footnotes and the supplementary material all
help in understanding the play, placing it in the social and legal
context of its day. Not that it is a mere period piece; Pinero's skill
as a playwright is impressive, and one hopes that this edition will
encourage new productions." Richard Foulkes, Professor,
University of Leicester
"A century and
more after the
fact, A. W. Pinero's
most penetrating play, The
Second Mrs Tanqueray, has now been given a full-dress
evaluative and contextual editorial treatment that does complete
justice to its subject. J. P. Wearing, editor of Pinero's
letters, has brought his finely honed scholarly skills and broad
knowledge of English theatre and culture to the task of presenting the
single most authoritative text of Pinero's play in existence
and surrounding it with several sets of informative critical, social,
and cultural writing, along with a comprehensive introduction,
chronology, and bibliography. An immense amount of research lies behind
this enterprise, and a great range of potential readers, from
undergraduate and graduate students to historians and critics, will be
the beneficiaries." Joseph
Donohue, Professor Emeritus, University of Massachusetts
ISBN:
9781551116877;1551116871
216pp. Paperback
$16.95 CDN / $12.95 US / £8.99 UK / $22.95 AUST
Buy
The Second Mrs.
Tanqueray at
Amazon.com.
Bernard
Shaw: Arms and
the Man. London: Methuen Drama, 2008.
"This Shaw play must be one of
the funniest written in the last 100
years. It has you running breathlessly to keep up with its logic" (The
Guardian) Arms and
the
Man has
proved to one of Shaw's most popular
plays, challenging notions of romance, bravery, cowardice, patriotism,
and loyalty. This is a fresh, up to date and accessibly written
critical edition for literature and drama students. An authoritative
and academically rigorous edition, edited by leading Shaw scholar, J.P
Wearing, under the guidance of the advisor to the Shaw Estate, Len
Connolly. Students will find a wealth of information to guide their
studies: an extended introduction exploring theatrical and historical
context, critical reactions, background on the author and stage
history. It also includes Shaw's original Preface, and the play itself
contains numerous notes and explanations throughout to aid the
student's understanding.
Buy Arms and the Man at Waterstones or Amazon.
Bernard Shaw:
On War. London: Hesperus Press, 2009. Foreword by
Philip
Pullman.
An anthology of extracts from plays, books,
pamphlets,
speeches, and letters that reflect Shaw's wide-ranging views on war,
beginning in 1894 and end ending in 1949.
Contents:
Arms and the Man, Act I; The Boer War; The Boer War Revisited; Man and Superman, Act III, ‘Don Juan in Hell’; Major Barbara, Act III; ‘Armaments and Conscription: A Triple Alliance against War’; Common Sense About the War; O’Flaherty, V.C.: A Recruiting Pamphlet;
‘Conscientious Objectors’; Shaw and a Zeppelin; ‘The
Emperor and the Little Girl’; ‘Joy Riding at the
Front’; On the Death of Mrs Patrick Campbell’s Son; War Issues for Irishmen; Heartbreak House, Preface; Saint Joan, Preface; The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism,‘Empires
in Collision’; ‘This Danger of War’; ‘Theatres
in Time of War’; ‘Uncommon Sense About the War’;
‘The Unavoidable Subject’; Wartime Life in the Country; ‘Military and Non-Military Objectives’; ‘The Atomic Bomb’; Geneva, Preface; ‘Nuremberg’; Farfetched Fables; ‘Atomic Welfare’
In preparation: American
and British Theatrical Biography (2nd
edition), and revised editions of The London Stage: A
Calendar of
Plays and Players for the years 1890-1959 (Scarecrow Press).
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