Thomas Patrick Betterton was born around 1635 in London.As can be understood exact records of much of his early life do not exist.We know he was apprenticed to John Holden, Sir William Davenant's publisher, and later John Rhodes, a bookseller, whose previous career was that of wardrobe-keeper at the Blackfriars Theatre. In 1659, Rhodes obtained a license to set up a company of players at the Cockpit Theatre in Drury Lane; and when the theatre re-opened the following year Betterton made his first stage appearance.By all accounts he was talented and was soon performing the leads. In 1661 a new theatre opened in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Davenant, the patentee of the Duke's Company, engaged Betterton and Rhodes's company to perform his 'The Siege of Rhodes'. Betterton was by now a public favourite and a royal favourite and keen on improving the presentation of plays and the management of theatres. Charles II sent him to Paris to examine stage improvements and then introduced the shifting scenes that replaced the tapestry backgrounds of English theatre.In 1662 Betterton married the actress Mary Saunderson. She and Betterton played opposite each other in a production of Hamlet' she played Ophelia, to his Hamlet. They were also invited to teach the children from noble and royal families to perform John Crowne's 'Calisto', 1675, in the last Stuart court Masque.Betterton was taller than average, athletic, with a strong rather melodious voice which was wonderfully dexterious. His repertory included Shakespearian roles, in versions adapted by Davenant, Dryden, Shadwell and Nahum Tate. In them his performances were praised. He played Lear opposite Elizabeth Barry's Cordelia in Tate's modified version of Shakespeare's 'King Lear'. Betterton was also the author of several popular adaptations.After Davenant's death in 1668, Betterton was the manager and director of the Duke's Company, and from the merger of London's two theatre companies in 1682, he continued these functions in the new United Company. However, in 1695, as this theatrical monopoly worsened conditions of the actors they all walked out. They set up a co-operative company in Lincoln's Inn Fields under Betterton's leadership. The first production was the premiere of Congreve's 'Love for Love' with Betterton as Valentine and Anne Bracegirdle as Angelica. After several years, audiences dwindled, profits fell and Betterton now older and stricken with gout decided to retire from the stage. At his benefit performance, where he again played Valentine in 'Love for Love, the profits are said to have been over GBP500.Betterton's career behind the stage was almost transformative. He invented new stage machines at Dorset Garden Theatre, transposed 'The Prophetess' into an opera, and introduced French singers and dancers to the Restoration stage. He also built the first permanent theatre fully equipped with Italianate machinery. Additionally, he invested in remodeling the tennis court in the Lincoln's Inn Fields and built a new theatre there. His salary was now topped up by a small "e;rent"e; fees for each performance played there.Betterton worked with all of the most significant playwrights of his age and performed with the first generation of English actresses. It is said that Betterton had more than 120 different roles at his command from heroic drama, Jonsonian comedy, comedies of manners, tragicomedies by Beaumont and Fletcher, and tragedies, comedies and histories by Shakespeare. At the age of seventy-five, he claimed, "e;He was yet learning to be an actor."e; Three days before his death at seventy-five, he made his last appearance on the stage in 1710, as Melantius in 'The Maid's Tragedy'. Thomas Betterton died on April 28th 1710. He was buried in Westminster Abbey.

In 1896 JM Synge met W. B. Yeats, who encouraged Synge to live for a while in the Aran Islands and then return to Dublin and devote himself to creative work. In 1897 Synge suffered his first attack of Hodgkin's disease, a form of untreatable cancer at the time, and also had an enlarged gland removed from his neck. In 1898, he spent his first summer on the Aran Islands and then continued for the next five collecting stories and folklore and perfecting his Irish but continued to live in Paris for the rest of the year. During this period, Synge wrote his first play, When The Moon Has Set. In 1903, Synge left Paris and moved to London. He had written two one-act plays, Riders to the Sea and The Shadow of the Glen the previous year. The Shadow of the Glen was performed at the Molesworth Hall in October 1903. Riders to the Sea was performed at the same venue in February the following year. The play widely regarded as his masterpiece, The Playboy of the Western World, was first performed in the Abbey on 26 January 1907. The comedy attracted a hostile reaction from the Irish public and thereafter a riot ensued. Described as "e;an unmitigated, protracted libel upon Irish peasant men, and worse still upon Irish girlhood"e;. Yeats returned from Scotland to address the crowd on the second night, and decided to call in the police. Press opinion soon turned against the rioters and the protests petered out. Synge died of Hodgkin's disease just weeks short of his 38th birthday on March 24th 1909 trying to complete his last play, Deirdre Of The Sorrows. He was buried in Mount Jerome Graveyard, Dublin.

The reality is that little is known of Aristophanes actual life but eleven of his forty plays survive intact and upon those rest his deserved reputation as the Father of Comedy or, The Prince of Ancient Comedy. Accounts agree that he was born sometime between 456BC and 446 BC. Many cities claim the honor of his birthplace and the most probable story makes him the son of Philippus of gina, and therefore only an adopted citizen of Athens, a distinction which, at times could be cruel, though he was raised and educated in Athens. His plays are said to recreate the life of ancient Athens more realistically than any other author could. Intellectually his powers of ridicule were feared by his influential contemporaries; Plato himself singled out Aristophanes' play The Clouds as a slander that contributed to the trial and condemning to death of Socrates and although other satirical playwrights had also caricatured the philosopher his carried the most weight. His now lost play, The Babylonians, was denounced by the demagogue Cleon as a slander against the Athenian polis. Aristophanes seems to have taken this criticism to heart and thereafter caricatured Cleon mercilessly in his subsequent plays, especially The Knights. His life and playwriting years were undoubtedly long though again accounts as to the year of his death vary quite widely. What can be certain is that his legacy of surviving plays is in effect both a treasured legacy but also in itself the only surviving texts of Ancient Greek comedy.

James Shirley was born in London in September 1596. His education was through a collection of England's finest establishments: Merchant Taylors' School, London, St John's College, Oxford, and St Catharine's College, Cambridge, where he took his B.A. degree in approximately 1618. He first published in 1618, a poem entitled Echo, or the Unfortunate Lovers. As with many artists of this period full details of his life and career are not recorded. Sources say that after graduating he became "e;a minister of God's word in or near St Albans."e; A conversion to the Catholic faith enabled him to become master of St Albans School from 1623-25. He wrote his first play, Love Tricks, or the School of Complement, which was licensed on February 10th, 1625. From the given date it would seem he wrote this whilst at St Albans but, after its production, he moved to London and to live in Gray's Inn. For the next two decades, he would write prolifically and with great quality, across a spectrum of thirty plays; through tragedies and comedies to tragicomedies as well as several books of poetry. Unfortunately, his talents were left to wither when Parliament passed the Puritan edict in 1642, forbidding all stage plays and closing the theatres. Most of his early plays were performed by Queen Henrietta's Men, the acting company for which Shirley was engaged as house dramatist. Shirley's sympathies lay with the King in battles with Parliament and he received marks of special favor from the Queen. He made a bitter attack on William Prynne, who had attacked the stage in Histriomastix, and, when in 1634 a special masque was presented at Whitehall by the gentlemen of the Inns of Court as a practical reply to Prynne, Shirley wrote the text-The Triumph of Peace. Shirley spent the years 1636 to 1640 in Ireland, under the patronage of the Earl of Kildare. Several of his plays were produced by his friend John Ogilby in Dublin in the first ever constructed Irish theatre; The Werburgh Street Theatre. During his years in Dublin he wrote The Doubtful Heir, The Royal Master, The Constant Maid, and St. Patrick for Ireland. In his absence from London, Queen Henrietta's Men sold off a dozen of his plays to the stationers, who naturally, enough published them. When Shirley returned to London in 1640, he finished with the Queen Henrietta's company and his final plays in London were acted by the King's Men. On the outbreak of the English Civil War Shirley served with the Earl of Newcastle. However when the King's fortunes began to decline he returned to London. There his friend Thomas Stanley gave him help and thereafter Shirley supported himself in the main by teaching and publishing some educational works under the Commonwealth. In addition to these he published during the period of dramatic eclipse four small volumes of poems and plays, in 1646, 1653, 1655, and 1659. It is said that he was "e;a drudge"e; for John Ogilby in his translations of Homer's Iliad and the Odyssey, and survived into the reign of Charles II, but, though some of his comedies were revived, his days as a playwright were over. His death, at age seventy, along with that of his wife, in 1666, is described as one of fright and exposure due to the Great Fire of London which had raged through parts of London from September 2nd to the 5th. He was buried at St Giles in the Fields, in London, on October 29th, 1666.

Euripides is rightly lauded as one of the great dramatists of all time. In his lifetime, he wrote over 90 plays and although only 18 have survived they reveal the scope and reach of his genius. Euripides is identified with many theatrical innovations that have influenced drama all the way down to modern times, especially in the representation of traditional, mythical heroes as ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. As would be expected from a life lived 2,500 years ago, details of it are few and far between. Accounts of his life, written down the ages, do exist but whether much is reliable or surmised is open to debate. Most accounts agree that he was born on Salamis Island around 480 BC, to mother Cleito and father Mnesarchus, a retailer who lived in a village near Athens. Upon the receipt of an oracle saying that his son was fated to win "e;crowns of victory"e;, Mnesarchus insisted that the boy should train for a career in athletics. However, what is clear is that athletics was not to be the way to win crowns of victory. Euripides had been lucky enough to have been born in the era as the other two masters of Greek Tragedy; Sophocles and schylus. It was in their footsteps that he was destined to follow. His first play was performed some thirteen years after the first of Socrates plays and a mere three years after schylus had written his classic The Oristria. Theatre was becoming a very important part of the Greek culture. The Dionysia, held annually, was the most important festival of theatre and second only to the fore-runner of the Olympic games, the Panathenia, held every four years, in appeal. Euripides first competed in the City Dionysia, in 455 BC, one year after the death of schylus, and, incredibly, it was not until 441 BC that he won first prize. His final competition in Athens was in 408 BC. The Bacchae and Iphigenia in Aulis were performed after his death in 405 BC and first prize was awarded posthumously. Altogether his plays won first prize only five times. Euripides was also a great lyric poet. In Medea, for example, he composed for his city, Athens, "e;the noblest of her songs of praise"e;. His lyric skills however are not just confined to individual poems: "e;A play of Euripides is a musical whole....one song echoes motifs from the preceding song, while introducing new ones."e; Much of his life and his whole career coincided with the struggle between Athens and Sparta for hegemony in Greece but he didn't live to see the final defeat of his city. Euripides fell out of favour with his fellow Athenian citizens and retired to the court of Archelaus, king of Macedon, who treated him with consideration and affection. At his death, in around 406BC, he was mourned by the king, who, refusing the request of the Athenians that his remains be carried back to the Greek city, buried him with much splendor within his own dominions. His tomb was placed at the confluence of two streams, near Arethusa in Macedonia, and a cenotaph was built to his memory on the road from Athens towards the Piraeus.

The partnership between William Schwenck Gilbert and Arthur Seymour Sullivan and their canon of Savoy Operas is rightly lauded by all lovers of comic opera the world over. Gilbert's sharp, funny words and Sullivan's deliciously lively and hummable tunes create a world that is distinctly British in view but has the world as its audience. Both men were exceptionally talented and gifted in their own right and wrote much, often with other partners, that still stands the test of time. However, together as a team they created Light or Comic Operas of a standard that have had no rivals equal to their standard, before or since. That's quite an achievement. To be recognised by the critics is one thing but their commercial success was incredible. The profits were astronomical, allowing for the building of their own purpose built theatre - The Savoy Theatre. Beginning with the first of their fourteen collaborations, Thespis in 1871 and travelling through many classics including The Sorcerer (1877), H.M.S. Pinafore (1878), The Pirates of Penzance (1879), The Mikado (1885), The Gondoliers (1889) to their finale in 1896 with The Grand Duke, Gilbert & Sullivan created a legacy that is constantly revived and admired in theatres and other media to this very day.

Algernon Charles Swinburne was born on April 5th, 1837, in London, into a wealthy Northumbrian family. He was educated at Eton and at Balliol College, Oxford, but did not complete a degree. In 1860 Swinburne published two verse dramas but achieved his first literary success in 1865 with Atalanta in Calydon, written in the form of classical Greek tragedy. The following year "e;Poems and Ballads"e; brought him instant notoriety. He was now identified with "e;indecent"e; themes and the precept of art for art's sake. Although he produced much after this success in general his popularity and critical reputation declined. The most important qualities of Swinburne's work are an intense lyricism, his intricately extended and evocative imagery, metrical virtuosity, rich use of assonance and alliteration, and bold, complex rhythms. Swinburne's physical appearance was small, frail, and plagued by several other oddities of physique and temperament. Throughout the 1860s and 1870s he drank excessively and was prone to accidents that often left him bruised, bloody, or unconscious. Until his forties he suffered intermittent physical collapses that necessitated removal to his parents' home while he recovered. Throughout his career Swinburne also published literary criticism of great worth. His deep knowledge of world literatures contributed to a critical style rich in quotation, allusion, and comparison. He is particularly noted for discerning studies of Elizabethan dramatists and of many English and French poets and novelists. As well he was a noted essayist and wrote two novels. In 1879, Swinburne's friend and literary agent, Theodore Watts-Dunton, intervened during a time when Swinburne was dangerously ill. Watts-Dunton isolated Swinburne at a suburban home in Putney and gradually weaned him from alcohol, former companions and many other habits as well. Much of his poetry in this period may be inferior but some individual poems are exceptional; "e;By the North Sea,"e; "e;Evening on the Broads,"e; "e;A Nympholept,"e; "e;The Lake of Gaube,"e; and "e;Neap-Tide."e; Swinburne lived another thirty years with Watts-Dunton. He denied Swinburne's friends access to him, controlled the poet's money, and restricted his activities. It is often quoted that 'he saved the man but killed the poet'. Algernon Charles Swinburne died on April 10th, 1909 at the age of seventy-two.

John Galsworthy first published in 1897 with a collection of short stories entitled "e;The Four Winds"e;. For the next 7 years he published these and all works under his pen name John Sinjohn. It was only upon the death of his father and the publication of "e;The Island Pharisees"e; in 1904 that he published as John Galsworthy. His first play was The Silver Box, an immediate success when it debuted in 1906 and was followed by "e;The Man of Property"e; later that same year and was the first in the Forsyte trilogy. Whilst today he is far more well know as a Nobel Prize winning novelist then he was considered a playwright dealing with social issues and the class system. We publish here 'A Family Man' a great example of both his writing and his demonstration of how the class system worked at the time. He was appointed to the Order of Merit in 1929, after earlier turning down a knighthood, and awarded the Nobel Prize in 1932 though he was too ill to attend. John Galsworthy died from a brain tumour at his London home, Grove Lodge, Hampstead on January 31st 1933. In accordance with his will he was cremated at Woking with his ashes then being scattered over the South Downs from an aeroplane.

Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM, was born in Kirriemuir, Angus the ninth of ten children on May 9th, 1860. From early formative experiences, Barrie knew that he wished to follow a career as an author. His family wished otherwise and sought to persuade him to choose a profession, such as the ministry. The compromise was that he would attend university to study literature at the University of Edinburgh. He graduated with an M.A. on April 21st, 1882. His first job was as a staff journalist for the Nottingham Journal. The London editor of the St. James's Gazette "e;liked that Scotch thing"e; in Barrie's short stories about his mother's early life. They also served as the basis for his first novels. Barrie though was increasingly drawn to working in the theatre. His first play, a biography of Richard Savage, was only performed once and critically panned. Undaunted he immediately followed this with Ibsen's Ghost in 1891, a parody of Ibsen's plays Hedda Gabler and Ghosts. Barrie's third play, Walker, London, in 1892 led to an introduction to his future wife, a young actress by the name of Mary Ansell. The two became friends, and she helped his family to care for him when he fell very ill in 1893 and 1894. Barrie proposed and they were married, in Kirriemuir, on July 9th, 1894. By some accounts the relationship was unconsummated and indeed the couple had no children. The story of Peter Pan had begun to formulate when Barrie became acquainted with the Llewelyn Davis family in 1897, meeting George, Jack and baby Peter with their nanny in London's Kensington Gardens. In 1901 and 1902, Barrie had back-to-back theatre successes with Quality Street and The Admirable Crichton. The character of "e;Peter Pan"e; first appeared in The Little White Bird in 1902. This most famous and enduring of his works; Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up had its first stage performance on December 27th, 1904. Peter Pan would overshadow everything written during his career. He continued to write for the rest of his life contributing many other fine and important works. Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM, died of pneumonia on June 19th,1937 and was buried at Kirriemuir next to his parents and two of his siblings.

Philip Massinger was baptized at St. Thomas's in Salisbury on November 24th, 1583.Massinger is described in his matriculation entry at St. Alban Hall, Oxford (1602), as the son of a gentleman. His father, who had also been educated there, was a member of parliament, and attached to the household of Henry Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke. The Earl was later seen as a potential patron for Massinger.He left Oxford in 1606 without a degree. His father had died in 1603, and accounts suggest that Massinger was left with no financial support this, together with rumours that he had converted to Catholicism, meant the next stage of his career needed to provide an income.Massinger went to London to make his living as a dramatist, but he is only recorded as author some fifteen years later, when The Virgin Martyr (1621) is given as the work of Massinger and Thomas Dekker.During those early years as a playwright he wrote for the Elizabethan stage entrepreneur, Philip Henslowe. It was a difficult existence. Poverty was always close and there was constant pleading for advance payments on forthcoming works merely to survive.After Henslowe died in 1616 Massinger and John Fletcher began to write primarily for the King's Men and Massinger would write regularly for them until his death.The tone of the dedications in later plays suggests evidence of his continued poverty. In the preface of The Maid of Honour (1632) he wrote, addressing Sir Francis Foljambe and Sir Thomas Bland: "e;I had not to this time subsisted, but that I was supported by your frequent courtesies and favours."e;The prologue to The Guardian (1633) refers to two unsuccessful plays and two years of silence, when the author feared he had lost popular favour although, from the little evidence that survives, it also seems he had involved some of his plays with political characters which would have cast shadows upon England's alliances.Philip Massinger died suddenly at his house near the Globe Theatre on March 17th, 1640. He was buried the next day in the churchyard of St. Saviour's, Southwark, on March 18th, 1640. In the entry in the parish register he is described as a "e;stranger,"e; which, however, implies nothing more than that he belonged to another parish.

Henry Fielding was born at Sharpham Park, near Glastonbury, in Somerset on April 22nd 1707. His early years were spent on his parents' farm in Dorset before being educated at Eton.An early romance ended disastrously and with it his removal to London and the beginnings of a glittering literary career; he published his first play, at age 21, in 1728.He was prolific, sometimes writing six plays a year, but he did like to poke fun at the authorities. His plays were thought to be the final straw for the authorities in their attempts to bring in a new law. In 1737 The Theatrical Licensing Act was passed. At a stroke political satire was almost impossible. Fielding was rendered mute. Any playwright who was viewed with suspicion by the Government now found an audience difficult to find and therefore Theatre owners now toed the Government line.Fielding was practical with the circumstances and ironically stopped writing to once again take up his career in the practice of law and became a barrister after studying at Middle Temple. By this time he had married Charlotte Craddock, his first wife, and they would go on to have five children. Charlotte died in 1744 but was immortalised as the heroine in both Tom Jones and Amelia.Fielding was put out by the success of Samuel Richardson's Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded. His reaction was to spur him into writing a novel. In 1741 his first novel was published; the successful Shamela, an anonymous parody of Richardson's novel.Undoubtedly the masterpiece of Fielding's career was the novel Tom Jones, published in 1749. It is a wonderfully and carefully constructed picaresque novel following the convoluted and hilarious tale of how a foundling came into a fortune.Fielding was a consistent anti-Jacobite and a keen supporter of the Church of England. This led to him now being richly rewarded with the position of London's Chief Magistrate. Fielding continued to write and his career both literary and professional continued to climb.In 1749 he joined with his younger half-brother John, to help found what was the nascent forerunner to a London police force, the Bow Street Runners. Fielding's ardent commitment to the cause of justice in the 1750s unfortunately coincided with a rapid deterioration in his health. Such was his decline that in the summer of 1754 he travelled, with Mary and his daughter, to Portugal in search of a cure. Gout, asthma, dropsy and other afflictions forced him to use crutches. His health continued to fail alarmingly.Henry Fielding died in Lisbon two months later on October 8th, 1754.

Euripides is rightly lauded as one of the great dramatists of all time. In his lifetime, he wrote over 90 plays and although only 18 have survived they reveal the scope and reach of his genius. Euripides is identified with many theatrical innovations that have influenced drama all the way down to modern times, especially in the representation of traditional, mythical heroes as ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. As would be expected from a life lived 2,500 years ago, details of it are few and far between. Accounts of his life, written down the ages, do exist but whether much is reliable or surmised is open to debate. Most accounts agree that he was born on Salamis Island around 480 BC, to mother Cleito and father Mnesarchus, a retailer who lived in a village near Athens. Upon the receipt of an oracle saying that his son was fated to win "e;crowns of victory"e;, Mnesarchus insisted that the boy should train for a career in athletics. However, what is clear is that athletics was not to be the way to win crowns of victory. Euripides had been lucky enough to have been born in the era as the other two masters of Greek Tragedy; Sophocles and schylus. It was in their footsteps that he was destined to follow. His first play was performed some thirteen years after the first of Socrates plays and a mere three years after schylus had written his classic The Oristria. Theatre was becoming a very important part of the Greek culture. The Dionysia, held annually, was the most important festival of theatre and second only to the fore-runner of the Olympic games, the Panathenia, held every four years, in appeal. Euripides first competed in the City Dionysia, in 455 BC, one year after the death of schylus, and, incredibly, it was not until 441 BC that he won first prize. His final competition in Athens was in 408 BC. The Bacchae and Iphigenia in Aulis were performed after his death in 405 BC and first prize was awarded posthumously. Altogether his plays won first prize only five times. Euripides was also a great lyric poet. In Medea, for example, he composed for his city, Athens, "e;the noblest of her songs of praise"e;. His lyric skills however are not just confined to individual poems: "e;A play of Euripides is a musical whole....one song echoes motifs from the preceding song, while introducing new ones."e; Much of his life and his whole career coincided with the struggle between Athens and Sparta for hegemony in Greece but he didn't live to see the final defeat of his city. Euripides fell out of favour with his fellow Athenian citizens and retired to the court of Archelaus, king of Macedon, who treated him with consideration and affection. At his death, in around 406BC, he was mourned by the king, who, refusing the request of the Athenians that his remains be carried back to the Greek city, buried him with much splendor within his own dominions. His tomb was placed at the confluence of two streams, near Arethusa in Macedonia, and a cenotaph was built to his memory on the road from Athens towards the Piraeus.

William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939) is best described as Ireland's national poet in addition to being one of the major twentieth-century literary figures of the English tongue. To many literary critics, Yeats represents the 'Romantic poet of modernism,' which is quite revealing about his extraordinary style that combines between the outward emphasis on the expression of emotions and the extensive use of symbolism, imagery and allusions. Yeats also wrote prose and drama and established himself as the spokesman of the Irish cause. His fame was greatly boosted mainly after he received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923. His life was marked by his many love stories, by his great interest in oriental mysticism and occultism as well as by political engagement since he served as an Irish senator for two terms. Today, although William Butler Yeats's contribution to literary modernism and to Irish nationalism remains incontestable. Here we publish a collection of his short plays that offer a rich harvest from the talents of such an esteemed artist.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca, more readily known as Seneca the Younger, was born at Cordoba in the Roman province of Baetica in Hispania in approx 4 BC.Seneca attests that he was taken to Rome at a young age and educated in literature, grammar, and rhetoric; the standard education of high-born Romans. He also received philosophical training.Much of his life is not well documented but accounts do lean towards a pattern of ill-health at times. His breathing difficulties are thought to be the result of asthma and during his mid-twenties he contracted tuberculosis.He was sent to Egypt to live with his aunt, whose husband, Gaius Galerius, was Prefect of Egypt. In 31 AD he returned to Rome with her and, with her influence, was elected quaestor and with it the right to sit in the Roman Senate.Seneca's early career as a senator was successful and he was fulsomely praised for his oratory. A story related that emperor Caligula was so offended by Seneca's oratorical success that he ordered him to commit suicide. Seneca's ill-health prevented that.In 41 AD, Claudius became emperor, and Seneca was promptly cited by the new empress Messalina of adultery with Julia Livilla, the sister of Caligula and Agrippina.After trial the Senate pronounced a death sentence, which Claudius then commuted to exile. Seneca was to now spend the next eight years in Corsica. From this period of exile survive two of his earliest works-both consolations.In 49 AD Agrippina married her uncle Claudius, and through her Seneca was recalled to Rome. Agrippina appointed him, as tutor to her son, the future emperor Nero.Nero's early rule, during which he followed the advice of Seneca and Burrus, was competent. However, within a few years both Seneca and Burrus had lost their influence.In 58 AD the senator Publius Suillius Rufus made a series of public attacks on him saying that, Seneca had acquired a personal fortune of three hundred million sestertii. In response, Seneca brought a series of prosecutions for corruption against him. Suillius was dispatched into exile.After Burrus's death in 62 AD, Seneca's influence further declined. He adopted a quiet lifestyle at his country estates, concentrating on his studies and seldom visiting Rome. It was during these final few years that he composed two of his greatest works: 'Naturales Quaestiones'-an encyclopedia of the natural world; and his 'Letters to Lucilius'-which document his philosophical thoughts.In AD 65, Seneca was caught up in the aftermath of the Pisonian plot to kill Nero. Nero ordered him to kill himself. Seneca followed tradition by opening several veins in order to bleed to death. It was a sad conclusion for a man who has been called the first great Western thinker on the complex nature and role of gratitude in human relationships.

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in late April 1565 and baptised there on 26th April. He was one of eight children. Little is known about his life but what is evident is the enormous contribution he has made to world literature. His writing was progressive, magnificent in scope and breathtaking in execution. His plays and sonnets helped enable the English language to speak with a voice unmatched by any other. William Shakespeare died on April 23rd 1616, survived by his wife and two daughters. He was buried two days after his death in the chancel of the Holy Trinity Church. The epitaph on the slab which covers his grave includes the following passage, Good friend, for Jesus's sake forbear, To dig the dust enclosed here. Blessed me the man that spares these stones, And cursed be he that moves my bones. Here we publish his comedy from 1611 'The Tempest'.

For many of us DH Lawrence was a schoolboy hero. Who can forget sniggering in class at the mention of Women In Love or Lady Chatterley's Lover? Lawrence was a talented if nomadic writer whose novels were passionately received, suppressed at times and generally at odds with Establishment values. This of course did not deter him. At his death in 1930 at the young age of 44 he was more often thought of as a pornographer but in the ensuing years he has come to be more rightly regarded as one of the most imaginative writers these shores have produced. As well as his novels and of course his poetry - he wrote in excess of 800 of them he was also a very talented playwright. These works have not been given quite the attention they deserve. Here we publish 'The Fight For Barbara'.

Philip Massinger was baptized at St. Thomas's in Salisbury on November 24th, 1583.Massinger is described in his matriculation entry at St. Alban Hall, Oxford (1602), as the son of a gentleman. His father, who had also been educated there, was a member of parliament, and attached to the household of Henry Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke. The Earl was later seen as a potential patron for Massinger.He left Oxford in 1606 without a degree. His father had died in 1603, and accounts suggest that Massinger was left with no financial support this, together with rumours that he had converted to Catholicism, meant the next stage of his career needed to provide an income.Massinger went to London to make his living as a dramatist, but he is only recorded as author some fifteen years later, when The Virgin Martyr (1621) is given as the work of Massinger and Thomas Dekker.During those early years as a playwright he wrote for the Elizabethan stage entrepreneur, Philip Henslowe. It was a difficult existence. Poverty was always close and there was constant pleading for advance payments on forthcoming works merely to survive.After Henslowe died in 1616 Massinger and John Fletcher began to write primarily for the King's Men and Massinger would write regularly for them until his death.The tone of the dedications in later plays suggests evidence of his continued poverty. In the preface of The Maid of Honour (1632) he wrote, addressing Sir Francis Foljambe and Sir Thomas Bland: "e;I had not to this time subsisted, but that I was supported by your frequent courtesies and favours."e;The prologue to The Guardian (1633) refers to two unsuccessful plays and two years of silence, when the author feared he had lost popular favour although, from the little evidence that survives, it also seems he had involved some of his plays with political characters which would have cast shadows upon England's alliances.Philip Massinger died suddenly at his house near the Globe Theatre on March 17th, 1640. He was buried the next day in the churchyard of St. Saviour's, Southwark, on March 18th, 1640. In the entry in the parish register he is described as a "e;stranger,"e; which, however, implies nothing more than that he belonged to another parish.

Arthur Conan Doyle's The Poison Belt is another work of fiction by the author of the celebrated masterpiece The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. The novella centers around apocalyptic disasters that threaten to end human existence on Earth. Professor Challenger, an English scientist who is interested in preserving nature and human life, anticipates the Earth's contact with a poison belt of ether. The dangerous gas is believed to have the power to suffocate all living beings to death. Professor Challenger invites his closest companions, Malone, Roxton and Summerlee, to join him and his wife in his house. They are asked to bring oxygen tanks with them to find that Challenger has prepared a sealed room to protect their lives. Later, from their little shelter, Challenger's team watch the destruction of the outside world and the dying of almost everything. When they finally run out of oxygen, they are pushed to get out of the sealed room. Yet, to their surprise, they do not die. The Earth has passed through the poison belt and humanity has survived.

Henry Fielding was born at Sharpham Park, near Glastonbury, in Somerset on April 22nd 1707. His early years were spent on his parents' farm in Dorset before being educated at Eton.An early romance ended disastrously and with it his removal to London and the beginnings of a glittering literary career; he published his first play, at age 21, in 1728.He was prolific, sometimes writing six plays a year, but he did like to poke fun at the authorities. His plays were thought to be the final straw for the authorities in their attempts to bring in a new law. In 1737 The Theatrical Licensing Act was passed. At a stroke political satire was almost impossible. Fielding was rendered mute. Any playwright who was viewed with suspicion by the Government now found an audience difficult to find and therefore Theatre owners now toed the Government line.Fielding was practical with the circumstances and ironically stopped writing to once again take up his career in the practice of law and became a barrister after studying at Middle Temple. By this time he had married Charlotte Craddock, his first wife, and they would go on to have five children. Charlotte died in 1744 but was immortalised as the heroine in both Tom Jones and Amelia.Fielding was put out by the success of Samuel Richardson's Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded. His reaction was to spur him into writing a novel. In 1741 his first novel was published; the successful Shamela, an anonymous parody of Richardson's novel.Undoubtedly the masterpiece of Fielding's career was the novel Tom Jones, published in 1749. It is a wonderfully and carefully constructed picaresque novel following the convoluted and hilarious tale of how a foundling came into a fortune.Fielding was a consistent anti-Jacobite and a keen supporter of the Church of England. This led to him now being richly rewarded with the position of London's Chief Magistrate. Fielding continued to write and his career both literary and professional continued to climb.In 1749 he joined with his younger half-brother John, to help found what was the nascent forerunner to a London police force, the Bow Street Runners. Fielding's ardent commitment to the cause of justice in the 1750s unfortunately coincided with a rapid deterioration in his health. Such was his decline that in the summer of 1754 he travelled, with Mary and his daughter, to Portugal in search of a cure. Gout, asthma, dropsy and other afflictions forced him to use crutches. His health continued to fail alarmingly.Henry Fielding died in Lisbon two months later on October 8th, 1754.

Lorna Doone is a romance that tells the story of a seventeenth-century successful farmer, John Ridd, whose father is killed by the Doones, a clan of unruly brigands living in the wilderness. When John once accidently ventures into the clan's area, he meets the beautiful Lorna and falls in love with her. In order to rescue his beloved from the life that she hates, he has to go through a long and violent struggle with his rival Carver Doone who also claims Lorna's hand. He eventually succeeds in helping her escape from the clan to his family's home which is later attacked by Carver. Later, a family friend reveals to them that Lorna does not really belong to the Doone clan and that she was kidnapped after a raid during which her noble and extremely wealthy mother was murdered. As an heiress to her mother's fortunes, Lorna is now legally asked to leave for London and become her great-uncle's ward. Political upheaval shakes the whole kingdom and John is arrested for false accusations. After being brought to London and absolved from guilt, he meets Lorna who is still in love with him. Lorna is eventually allowed to go back to the country and marry John. In the midst of their wedding ceremony, Carver suddenly enters the church and hits Lorna. John follows him and they engage in a fight that ends in Carver's death.

20th Century War and Misery.The suicide of Hitler’s niece, the assassinations of Malcolm X and Franz Ferdinand, the Battle of the Somme and Stalingrad, and the betrayal of Anne Frank – these are some of the stories you’ll find in Rupert Colley’s new collection of articles, The Savage Years: Tales From the 20th Century.?Covering World War One, World War Two, the Cold War, the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and much more besides, immerse yourself in sixty stories from some of the key moments of modern (and a few not so modern) history.?Fully illustrated with 140 photos, this makes perfect reading for commuters, students or the curious.?A paperback version of this title is also available – an ideal birthday present for those who love a bit of war and misery.?Within?The Savage Years: Tales From the 20th Century, you’ll also meet Vladimir Lenin, Douglas Haig, Horst Wessel, Nikolai Bukharin, Fritz Haber, Joseph Goebbels, Joseph McCarthy, Rudolph Hess, Stalin’s mother and daughter, Leon Trotsky, Edith Cavell, Charles de Gaulle, Wilhelm II, Abraham Lincoln, Grigori Rasputin, and many, many more.?