Drama Classics series

The world's great plays at a great little price

Each pocket-sized volume contains:

a full introduction
an author biography
notes on historical and theatrical context
a plot synopsis
key dates
a further reading list
a glossary of unusual words and phrases (English-language texts)

The texts are presented uncut (with the exception of Faust, which is adapted for staging in a single evening) and uncluttered with footnotes; the translations are accurate and actable.

The Shoemakers' Holiday

By Thomas Dekker

4f 17m

A rumbustious Elizabethan comedy featuring identity fraud, love triangles and a marriage proposal disguised as a shoe fitting. In the Nick Hern Books Drama Classics series.

Six Characters in Search of an Author

By Luigi Pirandello Translated by Stephen Mulrine

6f 11m, plus extras, a girl and a boy

Pirandello's most famous play, about the nature of theatre and the problems of theatricality. In the Nick Hern Books Drama Classics series.

Slave Ubu

By Alfred Jarry

2f 12m plus extras

The third and final part of The Ubu Plays, Alfred Jarry's surreal and hilarious satire of power, greed, and bourgeois pretension. Slave Ubu concludes the adventures of Pa Ubu.

Published in volume Ubu

The Spanish Tragedy

By Thomas Kyd

2f 18m plus extras, doubling possible

A ghoulish and bloody 16th-century tragedy. In the Nick Hern Books Drama Classics series.

Spring Awakening

By Frank Wedekind Translated by Julian Forsyth and Margarete Forsyth

7f 26m

Frank Wedekind's famously banned German play about adolescent sexuality.

Summerfolk

By Maxim Gorky Translated by Stephen Mulrine

7f 11m plus extras

Gorky's magnificent play about the Russian bourgeois social class and the changes occurring around them in the middle of the first decade of the twentieth century. In the Nick Hern Books Drama Classics series.

Tartuffe

By Molière Translated by Martin Sorrell

5f 7m

Moliere's comic masterpiece about an irreclaimable hypocrite - one of the most famous French plays of all time.

Three Sisters

By Anton Chekhov Translated by Stephen Mulrine

5f 9m

Chekhov's masterpiece of provincial claustrophobia, translated and introduced by Stephen Mulrine.

'Tis Pity She's a Whore

By John Ford

4f 11m, plus extras

A classic tragedy of incestuous love between brother and sister. Published in the Nick Hern Books Drama Classics series.

Uncle Vanya

By Anton Chekhov Translated by Stephen Mulrine

4f 6m

Chekhov's great play about an elderly professor whose plans to sell off his rural estate threaten the livelihoods of those who have worked tirelessly to keep the estate going.

Volpone

By Ben Jonson

4f 21m, 1f/m, doubling possible

Volpone is a Venetian aristocrat, a loveable rogue who enjoys the cunning pursuit of wealth more than money itself. Pretending to be mortally ill, he watches as his greedy neighbours swarm around him with expensive gifts in the hope of inheriting his fortune.