Join us on a literary world trip!

Subscribe to read the full book or read the first pages for free!

I want to read the book!

All characters reduced

Blood and Ice (NHB Modern Plays) - cover

Blood and Ice (NHB Modern Plays)

Liz Lochhead

Publisher: Nick Hern Books

0
1
0

Summary

Renowned poet and dramatist Liz Lochhead tells the story of Frankenstein's creation.  
Summer 1816. A house party on the shores of Lake Geneva. Eighteen-year-old Mary and her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley, along with Mary's half-sister Claire and the infamous Lord Byron, take part in a challenge to see who can write the most horrifying story. Mary's contribution is to become one of the most celebrated Gothic novels of all time.  
Using flashbacks and the rich poetic language for which she has become admired, Lochhead weaves a spider's web of connections between Mary's own tragic life and that of her literary monster.  
As Lochhead writes in the Introduction to this revised version of the play, the myth created by Mary Shelley 'remains potent for our nuclear age, our age of astonishment and unease at the fruits of perhaps-beyond-the-boundaries genetic experimentation'.  
'thrilling... a play full of raging debates about freedom, responsibility, hedonism and privilege, about the emptiness of life without ideals and the cruelty of a life entirely driven by them' - Scotsman

Available since: 11/20/2015.

Poetry & Theatre

Other books that might interest you

Flights & Sink: Two Plays (NHB Modern Plays) - cover

Flights & Sink: Two Plays (NHB...

John O'Donovan

0
0
0

Two plays about contemporary life in Ireland, from award-winning writer John O'Donovan.
On the outskirts of Ennis, on a dark and stormy night, three men gather for the anniversary of a childhood friend, killed in a road accident when they were seventeen. Expecting a crowd and tearing into the cans, the three slowly realise they're the only ones coming. As they drink to their uncertain futures – and their receding youth – they're forced to face up to the ghost that has held them together.
Flights is a haunting and funny play about bereavement, brotherhood and breaking away from your past. It premiered in 2020 at glór in Ennis before transferring to Dublin and London, directed by Thomas Martin.
Sink is a play of two voices for one actor, about memory, catastrophe and sacrifice. Bríd's coming home to convalesce after drying out in rehab. Ciara's headed west too, investigating a potential archaeological site on a parched area of bogland. But as the countryside swelters in a heatwave, the pair find peace elusive. How will Bríd cope in her old haunts? How will Ciara confront a past she thought forgotten? And will they unearth the hidden truth that binds them together?
Sink premiered at the Dublin Fringe Festival in 2019, directed by Thomas Martin.
'O'Donovan is a gifted writer, the lines curl about each other with elegance and depth' - Irish Independent on Sink

His Dark Materials (Stage Version) (NHB Modern Plays) - cover

His Dark Materials (Stage...

Philip Pullman

0
0
0

A two-play dramatisation of Philip Pullman's extraordinary award-winning fantasy trilogy, first seen at the National Theatre.
His Dark Materials takes us on a thrilling journey through worlds familiar and unknown. For Lyra and Will, its two central characters, it's a coming of age and a transforming spiritual experience. Their great quest demands a savage struggle against the most dangerous of enemies. They encounter fantastical creatures in parallel worlds – rebellious angels, soul-eating spectres, child-catching Gobblers and the armoured bears and witch-clans of the Arctic. Finally, before reaching, perhaps, the republic of heaven, they must visit the land of the dead.
Note to performers: although conceived for a theatre with rich resources, this adaptation can also be staged in imaginative ways without the aid of sophisticated technology.
'Nicholas Wright... has risen to the challenge with brilliance' - Mail on Sunday
'"Unstageable" was the first reaction of the National Theatre's artistic director, Nicholas Hytner, to the idea of dramatising His Dark Materials. But last night's opening has triumphantly proved him wrong' - Sunday Times
'Children's theatre of an uncommon maturity and ambition... dazzling in just the right way... moments of heart-stopping simplicity' - Independent
'The hottest ticket in town long before press day... Book to see it next Christmas' - Financial Times

Incantations For Rest - Poems Meditations and Other Magic - cover

Incantations For Rest - Poems...

Atena O. Danner

0
0
0

A call to anyone who thought they were alone on the journey, Incantations for Rest is for kindred spirits: neurodivergent folks, parents up late past bedtime nursing resentment, Black people in predominantly white spaces—anyone who has found themselves at the edges of Beloved Community. 
 
Incantations for Rest is an invitation to slow down and explore every kind of rest, providing sacred space for those exhausted by the demands of a racist, ableist society. This stunning collection of poems, meditations, and magic by poet-activist Atena O. Danner is an examination of spiritual spaces, a love letter to Black well-being, and medicine for BIPOC people. Within these pages you are invited to savor connection, question assumptions, admit to complicated feelings, and still make room for joy. It is a beacon of affirmation and a vital tool for ritual and reflection.

Sonnet 43 - cover

Sonnet 43

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

0
0
0

LibriVox volunteers bring you 23 different recordings of Sonnet 43 by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. This was the weekly poetry project for the week of February 4th, 2007.

Death Benefits - Poems - cover

Death Benefits - Poems

Robin Morgan

0
1
0

Robin Morgan’s lyrical gifts are again on display in this limited edition of four of her most celebrated poems  Prostituted women, pimps, Alice B. Toklas, and Bertha Mason—Edward Rochester’s mad first wife in Jane Eyre—all make appearances in a poem titled “Battery,” a word that, in Morgan’s hands, has surprising meanings. Affirmation underscores the perfect Shakespearian sonnet, “Birthright,” as it counsels a defiant gaze at life and death. The life of a flower and the process it undergoes to blossom is the subject of “Peony,” with an utterly fresh metaphor that widens to embrace the planet. And the title poem, with its witty play on words, rips through denial in all its forms to find hard but bracing truths.

Here is the Beehive - cover

Here is the Beehive

Sarah Crossan

0
0
0

A brilliantly original debut about a love affair cut short, and how lonely it is to live inside a secret -- for fans of Sally Rooney, Sheila Heti, and Ottessa Moshfegh.Ana Kelly can deal with death. As an estate lawyer, an unfortunate part of her day-to-day is phone calls from the next of kin informing her that one of her clients has died. But nothing could have prepared Ana for the call from Rebecca Taylor, explaining in a strangely calm tone that her husband Connor was killed in an accident.Ana had been having an affair with Connor for three years, keeping their love secret in hotel rooms, weekends away, and swiftly deleted text messages. Though consuming, they hide their love well, and nobody knows of their relationship except Mark, Connor's best friend.Alone and undone, Ana seeks friendship with the person who she once thought of as her adversary and opposite, but who is now the only one who shares her pain -- Rebecca. As Ana becomes closer to her lover's widow, she is forced to reconcile painful truths about the affair, and the fickleness of love and desire. Funny, frank, and strange, Sarah Crossan's moving novel is wholly original and deeply resonant.