1888-1959

Features analysis of the plays most frequently studied in literature classes. Entries include: introduction providing overview of play; brief biography of playwright; plot summary; discussion of play's principal themes; essays on play's construction; and excerpted critical commentary.

Provides critical overviews of the most-studied plays of all time periods, nations, and cultures. Includes discussions of themes, characters, critical reception, dramatic devices and traditions as well as cultural and historical context.

Each volume provides discussions of the literary and historical background of novels from various cultures and time periods. Includes concise synopses of plot, characters and themes, a brief author biography, discussion of the story's cultural and historical significance, and excerpted criticism.

L.A. private eye Philip Marlowe takes on a blackmail case and follows a trail peopled with murderers, pornographers, nightclub rogues and the spoiled rich.

Provides in-depth analysis of the life, works, career, and critical importance of Raymond Chandler.

Contains illustrations, facsimiles, and biographical and critical source materials on the life and writings of detective novelist Raymond Chandler, and includes suggestions for further reading, and a cumulative index.

Discusses the political influences of the brothers, John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles, during the peak of the Cold War in the nineteen fifties.

Traces the career of playwright Maxwell Anderson from his farm boyhood as the son of a frequently-moving clergyman through his studies at Harvard and Stanford to his Broadway successes beginning with Saturday's Children in 1927.