Complementing Dalkey Archive's edition of Firbank's Complete Short Stories (published in 1990), Complete Plays makes available for the first time in one volume this inimitable British writer's three excursions into drama: The Mauve Tower (1904), a "dream play" reminiscent in language and setting of Oscar Wilde's Salome and the writings of the French symbolists; A Disciple from the Country (1907), a one-act comedy about a debutante who flirts with religion and sainthood in order to catch a husband; and The Princess Zoubaroff (1920), a three-act comedy about marriage, religion, and homosexual separatism. The latter, which has been produced in England occasionally since the 1950s, is considered to be among Firbank's major works, and yet it, like the other two plays, has not been generally available in this country until now. The plays are filled with the wit and satire for which Firbank's novels are relished; indeed, Firbank's novels relied so heavily on dialogue that the distinction between them and his plays is minimal. Consequently, those who enjoy his novels and stories - as well as those who enjoy the comic British theater tradition of Pinero, Wilde, and Coward - should welcome this collection. Steven Moore, who edited the Complete Short Stories, has written an introduction placing the plays in the context of Firbank's life.

Rewritten versions of contributions to an international conference held at the University of Antwerp in May 1992. Starting point for the conference was the vagueness of the very terms 'modernism' and 'modernity'. In the first section a group of comparatists address the theoretical and terminological problems of modernism. Practical readings of modernist writers; discussions of different modernist movements; and, the work of critics who have contributed to debates about modernism make up the second section. The third section looks at the problem of modernism from an interartistic and interdisciplinary perspective.

The main concern of this study is the artist’s vision of society; its major theme is the relation between the individual and society resulting from the impact of social and political upheavals on individual life. By criticism of society I mean the novelist’s awareness of the social reality and of the individual’s response to it; the writers I deal with all proved alive to the changes that were taking place in English society between the two World Wars. Though the social attitudes of the inter-war years as well as the writers’ response to them were shaped by lasting and complex influences, such as trends in philosophy and science, the two Wars stand out as determining factors in the development of the novel: the consequences of the First were explored by most writers in the Twenties, whereas in the following decade the novelists felt compelled to voice the anxiety aroused by the threat of another conflict and to warn against its possible effects. After the First World War many writers felt keenly the social disruption: the old standards, which were thought to have made this suicidal War possible, were distrusted; the code of behaviour and the moral values of the older generation were openly criticized for having led to bankruptcy. Disparagement of authority increased the individual’s sense of isolation, his insecurity, his disgust or fear. Even the search for pleasure so widely satirized in the Twenties was the expression of a cynicism born of despair. The ensuing disengagement of the individual from his environment became a major theme in the novel: his isolation was at once a cause for resentment and the source of his fierce individualism.

An annotated Bibliography of secondary Materials,1905-1955

Part of a series which looks at contemporary criticism on neglected literary and cultural areas, this book examines the conventional academic view of lesbian/gay writing and has essays on lesbian writers as well as a section on gay men's writing. All the critical essays are by lesbians or gay men.