Oscar Wilde

John Osborne

As London slides from one century into the next, a young man is cursed with the uncanny ability to remain both young and beautiful while descending into a life of heartless debauchery. With its glittering dialogue, provocative imagery and radical questioning of sexual and moral freedoms all brought sharply into focus by this brand-new adaptation, Oscar Wilde’s infamous parable has lost none of its power to provoke and disturb. Using Wilde’s original words, a company of sixteen actors and all of adaptor Neil Bartlett’s trademark theatricality, this new stage version of Wilde’s black-hearted parable was commissioned by and first produced at the Abbey Theatre, Ireland’s national theatre in the autumn season of 2012.

The Picture of Dorian Gray

The text of the play, first performed in London in 1956, depicts the despair of post-war youth

Look Back in Anger

Patriot for Me

Look Back in Anger (Faber Plays)

Book One of the Willow Brown Stories.For thirty years, Willow Brown has lived in the woods on her deceased parent's estate, where she follows a reclusive lifestyle caring for the wildlife and avoiding human contact. Then Willow's quiet world turns upside down when nature photographer Noah Phelps crosses her path and discovers she can fly...Noah quickly learns there is more to fairies than just flying. Gifted with magical powers far beyond his Wiccan charms, Willow is also a woman with issues and a haunting past. When local bully Chester Jones reignites a long-standing feud, Willow turns to her "mere human" friend for help and finds love as well.Willow is the most delightful, mysterious, feisty, irritating, yet lovable woman Noah has ever known. At his urging, she seeks the answer to the mystery of her parents' death and Jones's sudden interest in her woodland home. Fairy magic, Wiccan spells, and the Jones brand of folk magic crisscross the ether, as a race ensues to find the clues hidden in the woods.After Willow casts her spell, you will believe in fairies.

An Ordinary Fairy

Book Two of the Willow Brown Stories.In this follow-up to John Osborne's first book, the continuing story of fairy Willow Brown and her "mere human" companion Noah Phelps takes some magical twists and turns.Noah looks forward to a quiet visit at his parents' Wisconsin home, accompanied by his lover and fairy friend, Willow, but a late night phone call shatters their serenity. Tragedy has struck in the life of Willow's best friend and fellow fairy, Rowan Westfall: her partner, Ruthie, has suffered a fatal accident.After a hasty trip to Rowan's Kentucky home and a strange meeting with the sheriff, it appears all was not as first believed. Suspicion grows when Ruthie's computer is stolen. The three friends hunt for answers, but sink deeper into mystery, as Noah learns what it's like coping with two spirited fairies. Just as they near the solution, a fairy Hunter comes onto the scene, disrupting their progress and threatening the two fairies' lives.Noah continues his struggle with Willow's secrecy, until conflict erupts between them. Only an unexpected crisis reunites their magic, forcing Willow to reveal her past. Aided by a band of misfit teens who know Rowan's secret nature, Noah and Willow must use all their skills and magic when the Hunter strikes.

Willow Brown, American Fairy

Book Three of the Willow Brown Stories.Noah Phelps is living a dream when he moves into a woodland mansion with a rich, beautiful woman, his fairy friend and lover, Willow Brown. The only downside is the guests: Willow has opened her home to twenty-one wayward fairies. Old and young, friendly and aloof, a houseful of fairies ensures daily bedlam. To keep his sanity, Noah befriends the only other human resident, mysterious Claire Greene.Noah has adjusted to the Big House routine when a call for help comes from a nearby Amish community. A new wind farm, built adjacent to Amish land, has brought turmoil to the plain folk, who are split over the encroachment of this new technology of the "English". As a member of the Airne, an elite corps of fairies sworn to protect the fairy population and their human allies, Willow agrees she and Noah should assist. When Claire hears their plan, she persuades them to include her, and the three journey to nearby Arthur, where the two women pose as Amish while Noah remains in the open.Noah finds Claire disturbing. Distractingly pretty, she's not the person he expected. Like Willow, she harbors secrets. When she begins to manifest powers even she can't understand, Noah's attention is divided between the two women and threatens his relationship with Willow.During days and nights of investigation, things are not as expected. The wind farm staff have misled the Amish, but Noah finds the plain folk have not been honest, either. Accusations, lies, and vandalism abound as the three seek the truth, before they stumble upon the unexpected source of discord. Noah, Willow, and Claire confront two menaces in a final struggle against the megaliths of technology and an ancient evil from the past, risking all to prevent disaster and guard the Mystery.

Willow Brown, Plain Fairy: Book Three of the Willow Brown Stories

Birte Dupont

Ernst Dupont

What was German Naturalism? What were its achievements? How does it compare with its counterparts in other European countries? These are some of the difficult questions addressed by John Osborne in Gerhart Hauptmann and the Naturalist Drama, a revised and updated version of his The Naturalist Drama in Germany, now widely acknowledged as the standard introduction to the subject. The debates to which he contributed, and in some cases initiated, on Naturalism in the German theatre, Naturalist theory in Germany, and the development of the Naturalist movement to the contemporary Social Democrat movement, have remained central issues. This revised edition preserves the structure and approach of the original, including its emphasis on the early dramas of Hauptmann, while taking full account of subsequent scholarship which provides the context in which this Naturalist playwright's work can be placed.

Gerhard Hauptmann and the Naturalist Drama

Pamela Lane

A completely fresh insight into the mind of one of the UK's greatest playwrights, the letters between John Osborne and his first wife, actress Pamela Lane, are also a love letter to a now defunct system of repertory theatre, and life in post-war Britain. As these letters reveal, soon after their divorce, Osborne and Lane began a mutually supportive, loyal, frequently stormy and sometimes sexually intimate alliance lasting thirty years until Osborne's death. By the mid-1980s, they had become closer and more trusting than they had been since their earliest years together. 'You are for me what you always were,' Pamela told him, 'I am in love with you still.' It is, he declared, 'my fortune to have loved someone for a lifetime.' Acerbic, witty, candid and heartbreaking, they reveal a unique relationship, troubled, tender and enduring.

The Intimate Letters of John Osborne and Pamela Lane

Dearest Squirrel...'

Rosamond McKitterick

Joanna Story

Carol M. Richardson

Provides the first full study of the predecessor church of St Peter's Basilica in Rome, from late antique construction to Renaissance destruction.

Old Saint Peter's, Rome

This second collection of John Osborne's dramatic work includes The Entertainer, The Hotel in Amsterdam, West of Suez and Time Present. 'A lifelong satirist of prigs and puritans, whether of the Right or Left, he took no hostages, expecting from other people the same unyielding, unflinching commitment to their view of the truth which he took for granted in his own. Of all the British playwrights of the twentieth century he is the one who risked the most. And risking most, frequently offered the most rewards.' David Hare, Spectator 'Osborne was an instinctive writer, but he had genius in his early years for capturing the national mood and conveying undiluted feeling... one wonders whether any of the bright new talents will have the courage to do what Osborne did in the past: to encapsulate on the tiny stage the state of the nation at large.' Guardian Praise for The Entertainer 'The rancid, dead-accurate domestic dialogue is a joy, with clichés dropping like bats from the ceiling... the play becomes a flamboyant coronach for England's lost greatness, enshrining one of the great characters in modern drama.' Daily Telegraph 'Like all Osborne's best work, this is a play about personal failure, individual desolation, the frustration of a community. One of the reasons why Osborne changed the face of English theatre is that he made passionate personal drama out of a national malaise.' Sunday Times

The Entertainer; The Hotel in Amsterdam; West of Suez; Time Present

John Osborne Plays 2

John Osborne's first volume of autobiography was acclaimed on its first publication as a contemporary classic. It is now reissued as a Faber paperback for the first time.

An Autobiography 1929-1956

A Better Class of Person

(M. 3. f. 5).

Inadmissable Evidence

Six London friends, whose lives and work are overshadowed by a demanding film producer, flee the country for a weekend to escape his clutches. Safely ensconced in a hotel in Amsterdam, the uneasy equilibrium that has existed between them is joyously exposed as the alcohol starts to flow. John Osborne's funny and moving account of friendship won the Evening Standard Best Play of the Year Award in 1968. The play was revived by the Donmar Warehouse, London, in September 2003.

The Hotel in Amsterdam

“I have injured no man’s reputation, taken no man’s property, attacked no man’s person, violated no oath, taught no immorality. I was asked a question and answered it openly.” Cheltenham, 1842. George Jacob Holyoake is a poor young teacher, making his way from Birmingham to Bristol to visit a friend who has been imprisoned for publishing a journal that criticises the establishment. When he makes a stop in Cheltenham to address a lecture, his words and his overwhelming commitment to speaking the truth will change his life forever. Arrested and tried for blasphemy, and separated from his starving wife and child, Holyoake is faced with the choice of conforming or staying true to his beliefs in a time of injustice and intolerance. Based on the true story of the last man to stand trial for blasphemy in England, A Subject Of Scandal And Concern was originally written for television in 1960 starring Richard Burton and Rachel Roberts, and directed by Tony Richardson, and was first seen onstage in Nottingham in the early 1960s. This production marks the first theatrical staging of the play in over 40 years and its long overdue London premiere. This volume also contains the short play Almost a Vision.

(and Almost a Vision)

A Subject of Scandal and Concern

This is a biographical sketch of the life and career of Edgar Dewdney who occupied various governmental offices. It discusses his handling of the North-West Rebellion of 1885.

Edgar Dewdney 1835-1916 (article)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1845 edition. Excerpt: ... a slight bluish flame. The precipitous sides of this magnificent amphitheatre were fringed with various evergreens and aromatic shrubs, flowers, and many alpine plants. On the north and south sides of the base of the cone were two pieces of water, one perfectly pure and tasteless, the other strongly impregnated with sulphur and alum. This lonely and beautiful spot was rendered more enchanting by the singularly melodious notes of a bird, an inhabitant of these upper solitudes, and altogether unknown to the other parts of the island. Nearly a century had now elapsed since the last convulsion of the mountain, or since any other elements had disturbed the serenity of this wilderness, than those which are common to the tropical tempest. But just as the plantation-bells rang twelve at noon, on Monday the 27th, an abrupt and dreadful crash from the mountain, with a severe concussion of the earth, and tremulous noise in the air, alarmed all around it. The resurrection of this fiery furnace was proclaimed in a moment, by a vast column of thick black ropy smoke, like that issuing from the furnace of an immense glass-house. The same awful scene presented itself on Tuesday and Wednesday, still gathering more thick and terrific for miles around the dismal and half-obscured mountain. On Thursday the memorable 30th of April, the reflection of the rising sun on this majestic body of curling vapour was sublime beyond imagination: any comparison of the glaciers of the Andes, or Cordilleras with it, can but feebly convey an idea of the fleecy whiteness and brilliancy of this column of intermingled and wreathed smoke and clouds: it afterwards assumed a more sulphureous cast, like what we call thunder-clouds, and in the course of the day, a ferruginous and...

Guide to the West Indies, Madeira, Mexico, Northern South-America, Comp. from Documents Specially Furnished by the Agents of the Royal Mail S

Claudia Bolgia

An exploration of the significance of medieval Rome, both as a physical city and an idea with immense cultural capital.

John Osborne

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