In this singular book written during World War Two, Bertolt Brecht presents a devastating visual and lyrical attack on war under modern capitalism.He takes photographs from newspapers and popular magazines, and adds short lapidary verses to each in a unique attempt to understand the truth of war using mass media.Pictures of catastrophic bombings, propaganda portraits of leading Nazis, scenes of unbearable tragedy on the battlefield - all these images contribute to an anthol...

Written in exile during the Second World War, the story of Brecht's classic play subverts an ancient Chinese tale - echoed in the Judgement of Solomon - in which two women claim the same child. The message of Brecht's parable is that resources should go to those who will make best use of them. Thanks to the rascally judge, Azdak, one of Brecht's most vivid creations, this story has a happy outcome: the child is entrusted to the peasant Grusha, who has loved and nurtured it.Publishe...

The city burns in the heat of civil war and a servant girl sacrifices everything to protect an abandoned child. But when peace is finally restored, the boy's mother comes to claim him. Calling upon the ancient tradition of the Chalk Circle, a comical judge sets about resolving the dispute. But in a culture of corruption and deception, who wins? Written by the grand master of storytelling and peopled with vivid and amusing characters, this is one of the greatest plays of the last century.

This Student Edition of Brecht's classic satire on the rise of Hitler features an extensiveintroduction and commentary that includes a plot summary, discussion ofthe context, themes, characters, style and language as well asquestions for further study and notes on words and phrases in the text.It is the perfect edition for students of theatre and literature.Described by Brecht as 'a gangster play that would recall certain events familiar to us all', A...

This version of Brecht's great anti-war play by playwright David Hare was premiered by the National Theatre, London, in November 1995. It adopts a freer approach to the text than many editions, adapting the original rather than offering a close translation. In this chronicle of the Thirty Years War, Mother Courage followsthe armies back and forth across Europe, selling provisions and liquorfrom her canteen wagon. One by one she loses her children to the warbut will not...

In this version of the story of Joan of Arc, Brecht transforms her into 'Joan Dark', a member of the 'Black Straw Hats' (a Salvation Army-like group) in twentieth century Chicago. The play charts Joan's battle with Pierpont Mauler, the unctuous owner of a meat-packing plant. Like her predecessor, Joan is a doomed woman, a martyr and (initially, at least) an innocent in a world of strike-breakers, fat cats, and penniless workers. Like many of Brecht's plays it is laced with humor and songs ...

Longlisted for the PEN Award for Poetry in TranslationAn historic publication in which the legendary German poet and dramatist emerges, quite like Goethe, as a poet driven by Eros.Bertolt Brecht is widely considered the greatest German playwright of the twentieth century, and to this day remains best known as a dramatist, the author of Mother Courage, The Threepenny Opera, and The Caucasian Chalk Circle, among so ...

Published by Methuen Drama, the collected dramatic works of Bertolt Brecht are presented in the most comprehensive and authoritative editions of Brecht's plays in the English language.The fifth volume in the Brecht Collected Plays series brings together two of Brecht's best-known and most frequently performed and studied plays: Life of Galileo and Mother Courage and Her Children. Galileo, which examines the conflict between free inquiry and official ideol...

Published by Methuen Drama, the collected dramatic works of Bertolt Brecht are presented in the most comprehensive and authoritative editions of Brecht's plays in the English language.This sixth volume of Brecht's Collected Plays contains three plays he wrote while in exile during the early stages of the Second World War. In Brecht's famous parable The Good Person of Szechwan, the gods come to earth in search of a thoroughly good person. Noone can be found until the...

Everyone knows that Bertolt Brecht was one of the great 20th-century innovators in theatre - the literary-theatrical equivalent of a Picasso or Stravinsky - and Germany's greatest poet of the last century, but the playwright was also a dazzling writer of stories. Storytelling permeated his art as a dramatist; fundamentally in his plays he was a storyteller. This volume collects the complete short stories written by Brecht, including the prize-winning 'The Monster', and the fragmentary memo...

Described by Brecht as 'a gangster play that would recall certain events familiar to us all', The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui is a witty and savage satire of the rise of Hitler – recast by Brecht into a small-time Chicago gangster's takeover of the city's greengrocery trade. Using a wide range of parody and pastiche – from Al Capone to Shakespeare's Richard III and Goethe's Faust – Brecht's compelling parable continues to have relevance wherever totalitarianism appears today....

Times Literary Supplement • Books of the Year ("The most generous available English collection of Brecht’s poetry.")A landmark literary event, The Collected Poems of Bertolt Brecht is the most extensive English translation of Brecht’s poetry to date.Widely celebrated as the greatest German playwright of the twentieth century, Bertolt Brecht was also, as George Steiner observed, “that very rare phenomenon, a great poet, for...