Selected Plays of Austin Clarke

Austin Clarke (1896-1974) is known as a poet, a playwright, a broadcaster and a novelist. In the later part of his life his work became better known principally through the support given by Liam Miller and the Dolmen Press in publishing hisCollected Plays(1963) and later single plays, and volumes of poems, culminating in hisCollected Poems(1974). His work as a reviewer was ceaseless, and during his life he wrote over 1,500 reviews, assessing over 5,000 books, but it must be as one of twentieth century Ireland's most important poets that he is best known. Clarke's plays are less well known, both perhaps because they are verse plays, and also because they have been out of print for so many years. The publication of a selection of them is therefore long overdue, and it includesThe Son of Learning,The Flame,Black Fast,The Kiss,As the Crow Flies,The Viscount of Blarney,The Second Kiss,Liberty Lane, the hitherto unpublished playThe Frenzy of SweeneyandSt Patrick's Purgatory, a translation of a play by Calder n, the essays "Verse Speaking" and "Verse-Speaking and Verse Drama" and a bibliographical checklist. The selection has been made and is introduced by Mary Shine Thompson. It is the fourteenth volume in theIrish Drama Selectionsseries (ISSN 0260-7962).Clarke, Austin is the author of 'Selected Plays of Austin Clarke ' with ISBN 9780861402083 and ISBN 0861402081.