Joseph Delaney used to be an English teacher, before becoming the best-selling author of the Spook's series, which has been published in 30 countries and sold over 4.5 million copies worldwide. The first book, The Spook's Apprentice, was adapted into a major motion picture starring Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore.

Joseph Delaney

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James Joyce

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It is only James Joyce's towering genius as a novelist that has led to the comparative neglect of his poetry and sole surviving play. And yet, argues Mays in his stimulating and informative introduction, several of these works not only occupy a pivotal position in Joyce's career; they are also magnificently assured achievements in their own right. Chamber Music is 'an extraordinary d&eacute;but', fusing the styles of the nineties and the Irish Revival with irony and characteristic verbal exuberance. Pomes Penyeach and Exiles (highly acclaimed in Harold Pinter's 1970 staging) were written when Joyce had published Dubliners and was completing A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Both confront painfully personal issues of adultery, jealousy and betrayal and so pave the way for the more detached and fully realized treatment in Ulysses. Joyce's occasional verse includes 'Ecce Puer' for his new-born grandson, juvenilia, satires, translations, limericks and a parody of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. All are brought together in this scholarly, fully annotated yet accessible new edition.

Poems and Exiles

Mike Leigh

Mike Leigh&rsquo;s 1970s classic play &lsquo;Abigail&rsquo;s Party&rsquo; focuses on an evening of domestic hell in the guise of a suburban drinks soir&eacute;e. While teenager Abigail parties a few doors away, the pretentious Beverly and her estate agent husband, Laurence, entertain their neighbours &ndash; Abigail&rsquo;s mother, Susan, ex-footballer, Tony, and his wife, Angela. But as the alcohol flows, tensions in the hosts&rsquo; barely functional marriage emerge and their obsessions, prejudices and petty competitiveness are ruthlessly, and hilariously, exposed. 
 
&lsquo;Goose-Pimples&rsquo;, meanwhile, is easily as sharp and uncompromising. This time, the action focuses on ambitious casino croupier, Jackie, and Saudi businessman, Muhammad, who meet &ndash; and misunderstand &ndash; one another spectacularly.

Abigail's Party & Goose-Pimples

Henrik Ibsen

The four plays in this volume, written late in Ibsen's career as a dramatist, move away from his earlier preoccupation with people at odds with society to instead explore the inward struggle with their own thoughts, feelings and dreams. The Master Builder (1892) depicts a powerful man whose illusions collapse in the face of a young woman's courageous common sense. In Rosmersholm (1886), an idealist is forced to question his beliefs and confront terrible truths about the past, while Little Eyolf (1894) portrays a man's self-deception, which brings both tragic repercussions for his family and new hope for their future. And in John Gabriel Borkman (1896), a dying woman returns to reclaim the affections and loyalty of her nephew, resulting in a bitter struggle with her sister.

The Master Builder and Other Plays

Alan Lerner

Frederick Loewe

Sparkling with wit, wisdom and wonderful songs including, &lsquo;I Could Have Danced All Night&rsquo;, &lsquo;Wouldn&rsquo;t It Be Loverly&rsquo; and &lsquo;Get Me To The Church On Time&rsquo;, the musical play based on Bernard Shaw&rsquo;s &lsquo;Pygmalion&rsquo; has been delighting audiences since it was first performed in the 1950s. 
 
When overbearing Professor Higgins stumbles on flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, in Covent Garden he recognizes that her hideous vowels and forgotten consonants are all that separate her from the upper classes. Higgins wagers that he can pass her off as a Duchess in a matter of weeks. But what will become of Eliza when the bet is over? 
 
This edition of &lsquo;My Fair Lady&rsquo; includes the complete script and a selection of black and white stills from the Oscar-winning film starring Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison.

My Fair Lady

Dan Laurence

George Bernard Shaw

&lsquo;A tearing, flaring, revivalist drama&rsquo; was how Desmond MacCarthy described The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet. Set in America&rsquo;s Wild West and aptly subtitled &lsquo;A Sermon in Crude Melodrama&rsquo;, this single-act play concerns the conversion of a horse thief desperate to &lsquo;keep the devil&rsquo; in him and die game. Published in 1909, it brought Shaw into conflict with the Lord Chamberlain of England, who banned it on the grounds of alleged blasphemy, and it was twelve years before the play was performed in a London theatre. In an interview Shaw commented, &lsquo;I am sorry that Fanny&rsquo;s First Play has destroyed the cherished legend that I am an unpopular playwright &hellip; for the first time I have allowed a play of mine to run itself to death &hellip; And the worst of it is it will not die.&rsquo; First performed in 1911, the play is a delightful farce in which Shaw debates some of his favourite subjects: middle-class morality, marriage, parents and children and women&rsquo;s rights. And, deliberately concealing his authorship, Shaw took the opportunity to satirize contemporary drama critics who, he claimed, &lsquo;do not know dramatic chalk from dramatic cheese when it is no longer labelled for them.&rsquo;

The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet and Fanny's First Play

Albert Camus

Stuart Gilbert

Caligula reveals some aspects of the existential notion of 'the absurd' by portraying an emperor so mighty and so desperate in his search for freedom that he inevitably destroys gods, men and himself. The dramatic impetus of Cross Purpose, however, comes from the tension between consent to and refusal of man's absurdity; it is the tragedy of a man who returns home to his mother and sister without revealing his identity to them. By the time of The Just and The Possessed, refusal and rebellion have taken over, and in these overtly political plays (the latter based on Dostoyevsky's The Devils) Camus dramatizes action and revolt in the name of liberty. 
 
Albert Camus was born in Algeria in 1913. His play, Caligula, appeared in 1939. His first two important books, L'Etranger (The Outsider) and the long essay Le Mythe de Sisyphe (The Myth of Sisyphus), were published when he returned to Paris. After the war he devoted himself to writing and established an international reputation with such books as La Peste (The Plague 1947), Les Justes (The Just 1949) and La Chute (The Fall; 1956). He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957. He was killed in a road accident in 1960.

Caligula and Other Plays

In these three unforgettably intense plays, Henrik Ibsen explores the problems of personal and social morality that he perceived in the world around him and, in particular, the complex nature of truth. The Pillars of the Community (1877) depicts a corrupt shipowner&rsquo;s struggle to hide the sins of his past at the expense of another man&rsquo;s reputation, while in The Wild Duck (1884) an idealist, believing he must tell the truth at any cost, destroys a family by exposing the lie behind his friend&rsquo;s marriage. And Hedda Gabler (1890) portrays an unhappily married woman who is unable to break free from the conventional life she has created for herself, with tragic results for the entire family.

Hedda Gabler and Other Plays

Oscar Wilde

Beautiful, aristocratic, an adored wife and young mother, Lady Windermere is 'a fascinating puritan' whose severe moral code leads her to the brink of social suicide. The only one who can save her is the mysterious Mrs Erlynne whose scandalous relationship with Lord Windermere has prompted her fatal impulse. And Mrs Erlynne has a secret - a secret Lady windermere must never know if she is to retain her peace of mind.

Lady Windermere's Fan

A. Humphreys

William Shakespeare

Shakespeare's immutable history of Henry's victory over the French at Agincourt and the subsequent peace between the two nations is also a study of war and kingship. From a wild youth, Henry comes to embody all of the kingly virtues: courage, justice, integrity and honour. Ironically these qualities are brought to the fore by the realities of war. 
 
Written at the end of the life of Elizabeth I, Henry V told the British people that with strong leadership, they had little to fear at a time of uncertainty.

Henry V

‘There is a tide in the affairs of men.’ 
 
Rediscover Shakespeare’s tale of power and betrayal. 
 
It’s lonely at the top. 
 
As the triumphant General Julius Caesar’s power continues to grow, so too does a plot to undo him. Contrived by enemies, joined by friends, it is the ultimate betrayal, and it will cost Caesar his life. 
 
Who will rise to fill the power vacuum – Caesar’s enemies, or his few true friends? 
 
Offering the complete and unabridged text, set in a dyslexic-friendly font and introduced by renowned YA authors, this beautifully designed collection is the perfect way to introduce YA readers to Shakespeare's most iconic stories.

Julius Caesar

Staged: the origins of YA’s greatest tropes

These are Shakespeare's greatest writings on power in all its forms - in love, in war, in politics and in the family. From Macbeth's vaulting ambition to Richard II's fragile grip on authority, from the violent rivalries of King Lear to the exquisite poetry of the love sonnets, these pieces show, with philosophical subtlety and psychological acuity, how we manipulate and dominate each other. 
 
Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.

On Power

‘They told me I was everything: 'tis a lie’ 
 
Rediscover Shakespeare’s tale of power and treachery. 
 
The price for power is paid in blood. 
 
The ageing King Lear must divide his kingdom between his daughters; but who to choose? Goneril and Regan, who love him loudly and flatter his ego, or the self-contained Cordelia, who waits for fate to bring what it will. 
 
It is a decision that will unleash a storm upon the kingdom. A decision twisted by love, by smiles, by quiet treachery. A decision that could undo them all. 
 
Offering the complete and unabridged text, set in a dyslexic-friendly font and introduced by renowned YA authors, this beautifully designed collection is the perfect way to introduce YA readers to Shakespeare's most iconic stories.

King Lear

August Wilson

In Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, the great blues diva Ma Rainey is due to arrive at a run-down Chicago recording studio with her entourage to cut new sides of old favourites. Waiting for her are the black musicians in her band, and the white owners of the record company. A tense, searing account of racism in jazz-era America that the New Yorker called 'a genuine work of art'. 
 
Fences centres on Troy Maxson, a garbage collector, an embittered former baseball player and a proud, dominating father. When college athletic recruiters scout his teenage son, Troy struggles against his young son's ambition, his wife, who he understands less and less, and his own frustrated dreams.

Fences & Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

Forty years on from its first performance at the Hampstead Theatre and original screening on BBC1 soon after, Mike Leigh's Abigail's Party - telling of two marriages spectacularly unravelling at an awkward neighbourhood drinks party - remains a pinnacle of British theatre. Here is the original script, complete with a new introduction by Mike Leigh describing the play's unlikely genesis, how it came to be made and where he believes it fits within his oeuvre as one of the country's leading writers and directors.

Abigail's Party

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