Tragedy
Alexander's Bridge
Bartley Alexander is a construction engineer and world-renowned builder of bridges going through what's known today (but not in 1912) as a m…
Paul and Virginia
Paul and Virginia was first published in 1787. The novel's title characters are very good friends since birth who fall in love, but sadly di…
There are Crimes and Crimes
Maurice, a playwright on the brink of success, feels so confident in his professional future he proposes to Jeanne, his mistress. However, u…
The Trojan Women
Described by modern playwright Ellen McLaughlin as "perhaps the greatest antiwar play ever written," "The Trojan Women,"…
The Suppliant Maidens
The Suppliants, also called The Suppliant Maidens, or The Suppliant Women, is a play by Aeschylus. It was probably first performed sometime …
Faust I
Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend; a highly successful scholar, but also dissatisfied with his life, and so makes a deal w…
Prometheus Bound
Whether or not it was actually written by Aeschylus, as is much disputed, "Prometheus Bound" is a powerful statement on behalf of …
The Tragedy of Mariam
The Tragedy of Mariam (1613) is the first original drama written in English by a woman. Elizabeth Cary drew on Jewish histories by Josephus …
Antigone
A powerful artistic protest against tyranny, "Antigone" has been translated and adapted dozens of times, applied over and over thr…
Hedda Gabler
Hedda Gabler has just returned from her honeymoon. She has married out of ennui, and is already heartily sick of her husband, who is a plodd…
The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus
Perhaps no play in William Shakespeare's body of work is more divisive than his first tragedy Titus Andronicus, wherein the titular Roman ge…
Rosmersholm
Rosmersholm is a play written in 1886 by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. In the estimation of many critics the piece is Ibsen's masterwor…
The Oresteia
The Oresteia is a trilogy by Aeschylus, one of the foremost playwrights of ancient Greece. It encompasses three plays: Agamemnon, The Libati…
Madame Bovary
Published in book form in April 1857, the novel focuses on a doctor's wife, Emma Bovary, who has adulterous affairs and lives beyond her mea…
The White Devil
John Webster's The White Devil (1612) is a Jacobean revenge tragedy, replete with adultery, murder, ghosts, and violence. The Duke of Brachi…
Othello
Othello is a tragedy about the downfall of the titular hero, Othello, a Moorish general in the service of Venice. His cunning ensign, Iago, …
Pierre and Luce
Pierre and Luce were an unlikely young pair who found themselves in the chaos of Paris during the war; Pierre, the shy, recently conscripted…
Cato
Joseph Addison is known mostly for his periodical, "The Spectator", written with his friend Richard Steele. But he found time to w…
The Cenci
Written in 1819, but not first staged for over hundred years after it was written due to controversial themes of incest and parricide, it wa…
The Persians
This is one of the few Greek tragedies that deals with historical events rather than mythological ones. The elders of the Persian court awa…