Originally published between 1982 and 1987, this series brings together the works of a wide and varied sampling of British and American dramatists from the mid-eighteenth to the early twentieth century and makes available a number of plays which were effective in their own time, and which are good enough to be effective still.  Meer

This edition includes four plays and one libretto, covering more than twenty years of the dramatist's career: The Palace of Truth (1870), Sweethearts (1874), Princess Toto (1876), Engaged (1877) and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (1891).  Meer

Five plays by this virtuoso of the theatre have been gathered in one volume and given scholarly attention. Dion Boucicault, the most popular dramatist of the second half of the nineteenth century, was also one of the most prolific and representative.  Meer

This volume contains edited texts of five plays by two late eighteenth-century dramatists. The plays have been chosen to represent the range of the two playwrights and the variety of dramatic material on offer during the period.  Meer

The American playwright and actor William Gillette is best remembered today for the role of Sherlock Holmes that he first created for the stage in 1899 and played for more than thirty years.  Meer

Tom Taylor was one of the most successful and popular playwrights of the Victorian theatre. His plays are humorous and theatrically powerful, showing a social concern that was advanced for his times - particularly on matters such as the rehabilitation of criminals and corruption in public life.  Meer

Henry Arthur Jones was among the most prominent British dramatists of his day. A contemporary of Pinero, Wilde and Shaw, he did his best to elevate drama to the level of literature whilst constructing plays that were also successful in the commercial theatre.  Meer

As playwrights David Garrick and George Colman the Elder showed themselves to be practical men of the theatre, providing excellent acting parts and well-constructed scenes capable of provoking laughter in any age.  Meer

The American playwright and manager-director Augustin Daly dominated the theatrical scene in the United States during the last half of the nineteenth century.  Meer

This volume contains four plays by the leading late Victorian and Edwardian playwright Arthur Wing Pinero (1855–1934). It provides a representative sample of the work of a writer who far outshone his rivals (including both Wilde and Shaw) in his own day, and inspired such successors as Somerset Maugham and Terence Rattigan in the genre of the 'wellmade play', and Ben Travers in the writing of farce.  Meer

James Robinson Planché was one of the most prolific and successful of nineteenth-century playwrights. In a career spanning fifty years he wrote over one hundred and eighty pieces of all types, from pantomime and farce to melodrama and opera, for production at a wide range of London theatres.  Meer

This volume introduces the works of an important but neglected dramatist, one of the most prolific and popular of the mid-Victorian period. H. J. Byron wrote an enormous number of comedies, burlesques and pantomimes.  Meer

This edition contains the three most important works of Charles Reade (1814–1884). Reade adapted the social purpose and concern for detail of the realistic novel to the stage.  Meer

For this volume George Taylor has edited five plays by two largely forgotten eighteenth-century playwrights, Samuel Foote and Arthur Murphy. The plays are The Minor and The Nabob by Foote and The Citizen, Three Weeks after Marriage and Know Your Own Mind by Murphy.  Meer

A cofounder of the Provincetown Players - the group that acted as midwife to the American theatre - Susan Glaspell (1876–1948) can also lay claim to be a major figure in her own right.  Meer

Harley Granville Barker, one of the most versatile figures in twentieth-century theatre, was the leader of the campaign to reform the English stage in the Edwardian period.  Meer

'After years of sham heroics and superhuman balderdash, Caste delighted everyone by its freshness, its nature, its humanity.' Thus, after watching a revival in 1897, did Shaw generously recognize the impact made thirty years earlier by Tom Robertson's best-known play.  Meer