Sean O'Casey – författare

A murderer becomes the toast of the village as his charm negates his crime. A young countess saves her tenants from starvation, but only by selling her soul to the Devil. The sleepy parish of Nyadnanave sees a vision of a cockerel that dares the inhabitants to break the shackles of Church and State. All these plays were met with moral outrage and rioting in their native Ireland.Yeats's 'The Countess Cathleen' (1892), J. M. Synge's 'The Playboy of the Western World' (1907) and O'Casey's 'Cock-a-doodle Dandy' (1949) emerged from a period of traumatic change for Ireland. While the plays bear witness to the immmense social upheavals of the turn of the twentieth century, they also represent a new age of Irish drama that rose from the turmoil, and their lessons ring true to this day.

This edition of Sean O'Casey's major plays is designed specifically for students and teachers. The plays are supported by a full introduction, covering O'Casey's career and critical responses to the plays, full notes and a bibliography.

The first volume of Sean O'Casey's plays includes Juno and the Paycock, Within the Gates, Red Roses for Me and Cock-a-Doodle Dandy, and is introduced by Seamus Heaney.'From the perspective of the 1990s O'Casey stands out as Ireland's greatest playwright of the century. He it was who most passionately, most powerfully and most memorably dramatized the traumatic birth of the nation. He it was who gave to the twentieth-century theatre a greater range of vivid and original characters, male and female, than any other Irish playwright. O'Casey's language, controversial though it may be in some critical circles, is a third feature of his work which for its richness, colour and vitality has won for him a lasting place in the international repertory.' Christopher Murray (from 'Mirror up to a Nation', Twentieth-Century Irish Drama

The second volume of Sean O'Casey's plays includes The Shadow of a Gunman, The Plough and the Stars, The Silver Tassie, Purple Dust and Hall of Healing, and is introduced by Arthur Miller.

Three early plays by Sean O'Casey--arguably his three greatest--demonstrate vividly O'Casey's ability to convey the reality of life and the depth of human emotion, specifically in Dublin before and during the Irish civil war of 1922-23, but, truly, throughout the known universe. In mirroring the lives of the Dublin poor, from the tenement dwellers in The Shadow of a Gunman and Juno and the Paycock to the bricklayer, street vendor, and charwoman in The Plough and the Stars, Sean O'Casey conveys with urgency and eloquence the tiny details that create a total character as well as the terrors, large and small, that the constant threat of political violence inevitably brings. As Seamus Heaney has written, "O'Casey's characters are both down to earth and larger than life . . . His democratic genius was at one with his tragic understanding, and his recoil from tyranny and his compassion for the oppressed were an essential - as opposed to a moral and thematic - part of his art."

This educational edition, with the full play text and an introduction to the playwright, features a detailed analysis of the language, structure and characters of the play, and textual notes explaining difficult words and references. It contains:- The full playtext- An introduction to the playwright, his background and his work- A detailed analysis of language, structure and characters in the play- Features of performance- Textual notes explaining difficult words and referencesProfessor Murray's notes, to be read alongside the full playtext provided here, will enable students to better understand, appreciate, enjoy and write about O'Casey's greatest play.

'I thought that no man liveth and dieth to himself, so I put behind what I thought and what I did the panorama of the world I lived in - the things that made me.'Sean O'Casey, 1948Sean O'Casey's six-part Autobiographies, originally published between 1939 and 1955, is an eloquently comprehensive self-portrait of an artist's life and times, unsurpassed in literature.This volume contains the first two parts: I Knock at the Door (1939) and Pictures in the Hallway (1942). The former charts the childhood of young 'John Cassidy' (as O'Casey was christened), powerfully marked by the death of his father and his affliction by the eye infection trachoma. Pictures in the Hallway carries the story into John's adolescence, and tentative steps into the adult world of work, the opposite sex and political awakening.

'I thought that no man liveth and dieth to himself, so I put behind what I thought and what I did the panorama of the world I lived in - the things that made me.' Sean O'Casey, 1948Sean O'Casey's six-part Autobiography, originally published between 1939 and 1955, is an eloquently comprehensive self-portrait of an artist's life and times, unsurpassed in literature.Drums Under the Windows (1945) sees O'Casey's young (pre-writing) life taking shape amid the extraordinary tumult of Ireland in the early twentieth century, thus leading him into the fray of the Easter Rising of 1916. Inishfallen, Fare Thee Well (1949) charts the steps towards his emigration from Ireland in 1926: a move pressed upon O'Casey by his hard struggle against the restrictions and prohibitions wrought by Irish society, church and state.Faber Finds is devoted to restoring to readers a wealth of lost or neglected classics and authors of distinction. The range embraces fiction, non-fiction, the arts and children's books. For a full list of available titles visit www.faberfinds.co.uk. To join the dialogue with fellow book-lovers please see our blog, www.faberfindsblog.co.uk.

'I thought that no man liveth and dieth to himself, so I put behind what I thought and what I did the panorama of the world I lived in - the things that made me.'Sean O'Casey, 1948Sean O'Casey's six-part Autobiography, originally published between 1939 and 1955, is an eloquently comprehensive self-portrait of an artist's life and times, unsurpassed in literature.As its title suggests, Rose and Crown (1952) reflects O'Casey's experience of making a new home in England where, socialist passion intact, he makes a sharp study of the General Strike of 1926. Sunset and Evening Star (1954) offers both valediction and celebration: for though O'Casey views Ireland as 'a decaying ark... afraid of the falling rain of the world's thought', he can still envisage the nation's young 'throwing out some of the musty stuff, bringing the fresh and the new...'Faber Finds is devoted to restoring to readers a wealth of lost or neglected classics and authors of distinction. The range embraces fiction, non-fiction, the arts and children's books. For a full list of available titles visit www.faberfinds.co.uk. To join the dialogue with fellow book-lovers please seeour blog, www.faberfindsblog.co.uk.

Ireland, World War One. Dashing Harry Heegan leads his football team to victory, arriving home in swaggering celebration before he grabs his kit and heads for the trenches. A nightmare world awaits, the men, reduced to cannon fodder, speaking in mangled incantations as the casualties stack up. Months later, Harry returns, a cripple at the football club party. Everyone but the shattered war veterans dance and forget.Peppered with acrid wit and dark vaudeville humour, The Silver Tassie, Sean O'Casey's powerful anti-war play of 1928, receives a major revival at the National Theatre in April 2014.

This educational edition, with the full play text and an introduction to the playwright, features a detailed analysis of the language, structure and characters of the play, and textual notes explaining difficult words and references. It contains:- The full playtext- An introduction to the playwright, his background and his work- A detailed analysis of language, structure and characters in the play- Features of performance- Textual notes explaining difficult words and references

Ah, what can God do agen the stupidity o' men!Dublin, 1922. The Irish Civil War is tearing the nation apart. In the cauldron of the family's tiny tenement flat, Juno Boyle, a beleaguered matriarch whose sharp wit is a survival tool, struggles to make ends meet and keep the family together. Her husband, 'Captain' Jack Boyle, fancies himself a ship's commander but sails no further than the pub. Then providence comes knocking with news of a greatinheritance.Sean O'Casey's tragicomic masterpiece was first performed at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, in 1924, and revived at the Gielgud Theatre, London, in September 2024.'The power of Juno and the Paycock never fails to surprise and enthral and inspire. Its violent passion, its deep humanity, its bubbling humour and its appalling tragedy are soaked in the very spirit of Ireland itself.' Daily Mail

The residents of a Dublin tenement shelter from the violence that sweeps through the city's streets. A revolution that will shape the country's future rages around them. What kind of Ireland awaits them?Set amid the tumult of the Easter Rising, The Plough and the Stars is the story of ordinary lives ripped apart by the idealism of the time.

This edition of Sean O''Casey''s major plays is designed specifically for students and teachers. The plays are supported by a full introduction, covering O''Casey''s career and critical responses to the plays, full notes and a bibliography.