Tragedy
Alcestis
Alcestis is the earliest surviving play by Euripides. Alcestis, the devoted wife of King Admetus, has agreed to die in his place, and at the…
Orestes
In accordance with the advice of the god Apollo, Orestes has killed his mother Clytemnestra to avenge the death of his father Agamemnon at h…
A Florentine Tragedy
Two short fragments: an unfinished and a lost play. A Florentine Tragedy, left in a taxi (not a handbag), is Wilde’s most successful attempt…
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…
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…
Vera
Vera; or, The Nihilists is Oscar Wilde's first play, a melodramatic tragedy that unfolds against the backdrop of 19th-century Russia. The st…
In the Village of Viger
These ten superb short stories of Duncan Campbell Scott, published in 1896, portray humorous, farcical, and tragic aspects of life in the fi…
Brand
Inflamed by what he saw as his Norwegian homeland's shocking betrayal of Denmark after the Prussian invasion of Danish territory, Ibsen wrot…
Thyestes
Thyestes is a Latin verse tragedy written by the Roman playwright Seneca the Younger, here translated into English. It is based on the Greek…
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 …
Othello
Othello is the story of a cross-cultural romance between the title character, a noble moor who is a general in the Venetian army, and Desdem…
Agamemnon
The play Agamemnon details the homecoming of Agamemnon, King of Argos, from the Trojan War. Waiting at home for him is his wife, Clytemnestr…
The Duchess of Padua
Guido Ferranti, a young man, travels to Padua with his friend Ascanio after receiving a mysterious letter from a stranger, claiming to know …
Oedipus
Oedipus is a Latin verse tragedy written by the Roman playwright Seneca the Younger. It is based on the Greek legend of Oedipus and his marr…
Edward II
Christopher Marlowe's Elizabethan tragedy focuses on the downfall of King Edward II, whose love for his favorite courtier, Piers Gaveston, l…
Seven Against Thebes
In this, the only extant tragedy from Aeschylus' trilogy about the House of Oedipus, Thebes is under siege from Polynices, a former prince o…
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…
All for Love
All for Love is widely considered to be John Dryden's finest work, dramatic or otherwise. A tragedy written in blank verse, it retells the s…
Hamlet
The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. Set in the Kingdom of Denmark, the play dramatizes the revenge…
The Father
The Father is a naturalistic drama by Swedish playwright August Strindberg. The central conflict is between the Captain and his wife Laura a…