Other books that might interest you

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  The Importance of Being Earnest

  Oscar Wilde

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  The Importance of Being Earnest is a play by Oscar Wilde. First performed on February 14th 1895 at the St James's Theatre in London, it is a farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious personæ to escape burdensome social obligations. Working within the social conventions of late Victorian London, the play's major themes are the triviality with which it treats institutions as serious as marriage, and the resulting satire of Victorian ways. Some contemporary reviews praised the play's humour and the culmination of Wilde's artistic career, while others were cautious about its lack of social messages. Its high farce and witty dialogue have helped make The Importance of Being Earnest Wilde's most enduringly popular play.  
  The successful opening night marked the climax of Wilde's career but also heralded his downfall. The Marquess of Queensberry, whose son Lord Alfred Douglas was Wilde's lover, planned to present the writer with a bouquet of rotten vegetables and disrupt the show. Wilde was tipped off and Queensberry was refused admission. Their feud came to a climax in court, where Wilde's homosexuality was revealed to the Victorian public and he was sentenced to imprisonment. Despite the play’s early success, Wilde’s notoriety caused the play to be closed after 86 performances. After his release from prison, he published the play from exile in Paris, but he wrote no further comic or dramatic work.

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  Dancing Bears (NHB Modern Plays)

  Sam Holcroft

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  The twisted loyalties and violence in teenage gangs is laid bare.
  This play was originally published in the volume Charged, a collection of plays about the lives of women in the criminal justice system, and was commissioned and premiered by Clean Break, a theatre and education company working with women whose lives have been affected by the criminal justice system.

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  The Sweet Science of Bruising...

  Joy Wilkinson

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  London, 1869. Four very different Victorian women are drawn into the dark underground world of female boxing by the eccentric Professor Sharp. Controlled by men and constrained by corsets, each finds an unexpected freedom in the boxing ring.
  As their lives begin to intertwine, their journey takes us through grand drawing rooms, bustling theatres and rowdy Southwark pubs, where the women fight inequality as well as each other. But with the final showdown approaching, only one can become the Lady Boxing Champion of the World…
  Joy Wilkinson's play The Sweet Science of Bruising is an epic tale of passion, politics and pugilism. It premiered at Southwark Playhouse, London, in 2018, in a production by Troupe.

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  Psalms and Odes of Solomon

  Unknown Unknown

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  One of the Pseudepigrapha, the Psalms of Solomon is a group of eighteen psalms (religious songs or poems) that are not part of any scriptural canon (they are, however, found in copies of the Peshitta). The Psalms of Solomon were referenced in Early Christian writings, but lost to modern scholars until a Greek manuscript was rediscovered in the 17th century. Politically, the Psalms of Solomon are anti-Maccabee, and some psalms in the collection show a clear awareness of the Roman conquest of Jerusalem under Pompey in 63 BCE, metaphorically treating him as a dragon who had been sent by God to punish the Maccabees.The Odes of Solomon is a collection of 42 odes attributed to Solomon. Various scholars have dated the composition of these religious poems to anywhere in the range of the first three centuries AD. The original language of the Odes is thought to have been either Greek or Syriac, and to be generally Christian in background. (Summary by Wikipedia)

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  Poems for Middle and High School...

  Edward Dyer, William...

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  Poems for Middle and High School Students
   
  
  Read by Connie Dangel and Martin Siemienski

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  Sitcom

  David McGimpsey

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  Implicating extremes from Coriolanus to Karen Carpenter, David McGimpsey’s Sitcom is both serious poetry and a work of comedy. Mischievous, generous and side-splittingly funny, this collection of wry soliloquies and sonnets begins with a milestone birthday and finds itself in demi-mondes as varied as the offices of university regents and the basic plot arc of Hawaii Five-O – offering, along the way, a sincere contemplationof mortality and the fashion sense of Mary Tyler Moore. Unembarrassed by its literary allusions or its hi-lo hybridity, Sitcom’s strategic and encompassing voice is prepared for each comedic disaster and is, somehow, always ready for next week’s episode.
   
  ‘McGimpsey displays erudition, clever insights and a knack for the wickedly funny wisecrack.’
   
  – The Washington Post
   
  ‘[McGimpsey] finds thehumanity hiding in the hilarity. This guy is as funny as David Sedaris, and more inventive.’
   
  – The Ottawa Citizen

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