Books in the Classical Dramatists series

The Athenian comedies not only lie at the root of Western drama, they also offer a unique insight into everyday life in Ancient Greece. This selection of plays includes the satirical comic fantasies of Aristophanes and Euripides' ribald satyr play, "Cyclops", the only survivng example of its genre.

This mixture of social and political satire, bawdy with passages of lyrical beauty, offers an insight into ancient Athens and its theatre. McLeish also has translated the plays of Sophocles and Aeschylus.

The Greek fleet assembles at the bay of Aulis in readiness to launch an attack on Troy, but the wind suddenly drops and the ships stand idle. Don Taylor's translation is faithful to Euripides' original, and the play confronts us with themes of war and humanity, as valid today as when written over two thousand years ago.

These plays, written after the defeat of Athens by the Spartans and the restoration of democracy, signal a change of emphasis in stage comedy more appropriate to the new world order. They represent the beginning of the European comic tradition.

The comedies of Platus and Terence are all that survive to us of a great age of Roman comedy theatre. Collected here are four important plays that offer an insight into everyday life in ancient Rome, whilst maintaining a pivotal influence over modern day theatre.

The collection in this volume is intended for both performers and readers. It includes translations of "Hippolytos", "Suppliants" and "Rhesos".

Contains texts for the theatre of four of Aeschylus's seven extant plays: "The Persians", "Prometheus Bound", "The Suppliants" and "Seven against Thebes". Aeschylus is one of the most important figures of Athenian drama and his remaining three plays are available in "Aeschylus Plays: Two".

This collection of three plays by Euripides includes: "Alkestis", a romance with parallels to Shakespeare's "The Winter's Tale"; "Helen", an alternative version of the myth of the Trojan War; and "Ion", a portrayal of childlessness and the abandoned child.

This anthology includes four translations of the Athenian tragedian, Euripides. "Cyclops" is a satyr play, one of the oldest forms of drama, whilst "Hecuba", "Iphigenia at Aulis" and "The Women of Troy" centre on the Trojan War and the horrors of mental and physical contact.

This anthology contains three of Euripides' tragedies: "Medea" concerns an abandoned wife who murders her children; "The Phoenician Women" adds a further twist to the story of Oedipus and Jocasta; and "Bacchae" is a macabre play about the power of Dionysos and unreason.

Contains the classical tragic trilogy "The Oresteia", which traces the passage of Greek emancipation from belief in blind necessity and from unquestioning submission to savage divinities. This is a companion volume to "Aeschylus Plays: One" which includes "Prometheus" and "The Persians".

A new translation of Euripides' play in which the young hero, a foundling engaged to keep the Temple of Apollo tidy, meets the Queen of Athens. She tells him of "a friend" who was seduced by Apollo and had a baby which she abandoned. After a series of twists and turns, mother and son are reunited.

Written at the time of the Peloponnesian War (425-420 BC), the three plays in this volume - "Andromache", "Herakles' Children" and "Herakles" - highlight the trivial causes and dire consequences of war.

The three plays by Euripides in this volume - "Elektra", "Orestes" and "Iphigeneia in Tauris", show the consequences of Agamemnon's "sacrifice" of his daughter at the start of the Trojan War.

One of a series, this second collection of plays includes translations of "Ajax", "Women of Trachis" and "Electra" and "Philoctetes", which have all been tried and tested upon the stage.

This mixture of social and political satire, bawdy with passages of lyrical beauty, offers an insight into ancient Athens and its theatre. McLeish also has translated the plays of Sophocles and Aeschylus.

The work of these three Athenian playwrights became the touchstone for drama for the next two and a half thousand years. This volume contains the earliest surviving Greek tragedy, an archtype of the human condition, a jealous wife's mistake, a moral debate, an anti-war play and a play of paradoxes.