Coward - Blithe Spirit, Present Laughter, This Happy Breed, Tonight at 8.30 (ii)

Blithe Spirit, Present Laughter, This Happy Breed,
To-night at 8.30 (Ways and Means, The Astonished Heart,
Red Peppers) This volume contains Cowards three best plays from the 1940s, as well as three shorter plays from the To-night at 8.30 sequence. Blithe Spirit: Without a single lapse into improbability it achieves the impossible... The authors light, easy, amusing way with ectoplasm, poltergeists, hypnotic trances and the like is so adroitly sustained that we are surprised only as we are meant to be surprised when at the bidding of the briskly fantastic, madly sincere Mme. Arcati the first Mrs. Condomine returns after death to make herself scandalously at home in her husbands pleasant country house. Daily Mail, 1941 Present Laughter: His chief characters are all members of a highly successful theatrical firm, with Mr. Daily Mail, 1941 Present Laughter: His chief characters are all members of a highly successful theatrical firm, with Mr.

Coward himself playing Garry Essendine, the romantic actor who is the firms chief asset... Let us be clear about it. There is no edification in this play, but there is any amount of fun. Daily Telegraph, 1943 This Happy Breed: In shape it is the simple chronicle of what happened to the Gibbons family in the years 191939, when they lived at No. 17, Sycamore Road, Clapham Common Not a typical Coward play, you perceive Here, for the first time in his brilliant career, we have him writing with sympathy, understanding, and admiration of the common man. in the same series
(introduced by Sheridan Morley) Coward
Collected Plays: One
(Hay Fever, The Vortex, Fallen Angels, Easy Virtue) Collected Plays: Two
(Private Lives, Bitter-Sweet, The Marquise, Post-Mortem) Collected Plays: Three
(Design for Living, Cavalcade, Conversation Piece,
and Hands Across the Sea, Still Life, Fumed Oak
from Tonight at 8.30) Collected Plays: Five
(Relative Values, Look After Lulu!
Waiting in the Wings, Suite in Three Keys) Collected Plays: Six
(Semi-Monde, Point Valaine, South Sea Bubble,
Nude With Violin) Collected Plays: Seven
(Quadrille, Peace in Our Time,
and We Were Dancing, Shadow Play, Family Album,
Star Chamber
from Tonight at 8.30) also by Nol CowardCollected Revue Sketches and ParodiesThe Complete Lyrics of Nol CowardCollected VerseCollected Short StoriesPomp and Circumstance
A Novel Autobiographyalso availableCoward the Playwright
by John Lahr NOL COWARD

Blithe Spirit
Present Laughter
This Happy Breed
and
Ways and Means
The Astonished Heart
Red Peppers
from
To-night at 8.30
Introduced by Sheridan MorleyBloomsbury Methuen Drama An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

50 Bedford Square	1385 Broadway
London	New York
WC1B 3DP	NY 10018
UK	USA

www.bloomsbury.comBloomsbury is a registered trade mark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Copyright in the plays is by NC Aventales AG, successor in title to the Estate of Nol Coward Introduction Sheridan Morley 1990, 1999 Chronology Jacqui Russell 1987, 1999 Published by arrangement with Doubleday, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday
Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc. in the same series
(introduced by Sheridan Morley) Coward
Collected Plays: One
(Hay Fever, The Vortex, Fallen Angels, Easy Virtue) Collected Plays: Two
(Private Lives, Bitter-Sweet, The Marquise, Post-Mortem) Collected Plays: Three
(Design for Living, Cavalcade, Conversation Piece,
and Hands Across the Sea, Still Life, Fumed Oak
from Tonight at 8.30) Collected Plays: Five
(Relative Values, Look After Lulu!
Waiting in the Wings, Suite in Three Keys) Collected Plays: Six
(Semi-Monde, Point Valaine, South Sea Bubble,
Nude With Violin) Collected Plays: Seven
(Quadrille, Peace in Our Time,
and We Were Dancing, Shadow Play, Family Album,
Star Chamber
from Tonight at 8.30) also by Nol CowardCollected Revue Sketches and ParodiesThe Complete Lyrics of Nol CowardCollected VerseCollected Short StoriesPomp and Circumstance
A Novel Autobiographyalso availableCoward the Playwright
by John Lahr NOL COWARD Blithe Spirit
Present Laughter
This Happy Breed
and
Ways and Means
The Astonished Heart
Red Peppers
from
To-night at 8.30
Introduced by Sheridan MorleyBloomsbury Methuen Drama An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

50 Bedford Square	1385 Broadway
London	New York
WC1B 3DP	NY 10018
UK	USA

www.bloomsbury.comBloomsbury is a registered trade mark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Copyright in the plays is by NC Aventales AG, successor in title to the Estate of Nol Coward Introduction Sheridan Morley 1990, 1999 Chronology Jacqui Russell 1987, 1999 Published by arrangement with Doubleday, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday
Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.

This collection first published in Great Britain in 1979 by Eyre Methuen Ltd This edition with a new Introduction first published in 1990 Reissued with a new cover, revised Introduction and Chronology in 1999
by Methuen Publishing Ltd Blithe Spirit was first published in Great Britain in 1942 by
Heinemann and republished in 1960 in Play Parade Vol. 5. It is reprinted
here by arrangement with William Heinemann Ltd Present Laughter was first published in 1943 by
Heinemann and republished in 1954 in Play Parade Vol. 4. This Happy Breed was first published in 1943 by
Heinemann and republished in 1954 in Play parade Vol. To-night at 8.30 was first published in 1936 by Heinemann and
republished in 1954 in Play Parade Vol. 4. 4.

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