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A group of highly opinionated individuals gather at a remote country estate in Hampshire and indulge in lengthy conversations about issues of the day over extravagant dinners. The young and idealistic Algernon Falconer resides in the opulent country house with seven young "handmaidens', whom he calls "Vestals." A learned and garrulous local clergyman, Dr. Opimian, becomes a friend and confidant of Mr. Falconer and decides that the young man would make a suitable husband for Morgana Gryll, a niece of one of his friends.

A Gallery of Children is A. A. Milne's first published book of prose. It was released after his poetry collection, When We Were Very Young, and prior to Winnie the Pooh. With his characteristic blend of nonsense, wit and warmth, Milne offers 12 short stories of childish endeavour and mishap. They will delight and amuse listeners both young and not-so-young.

Hamlet and Macbeth are two of Shakespeare's best-known plays and contain some of the most famous speeches in world literature. These one-act versions of the plays, which were edited by J. P. Crabb (the details of whose life and other works have disappeared into obscurity) retain the significant monologues and dialogues while presenting a streamlined view of the action.

These three tales were written for the popular literary gift annual The Keepsake in 1828, 1829, and 1831. Their "sensational" themes include exotic locations, dire misfortune, long-lost kin, stolen identity, evil redeemed, plots resolved by strange coincidences, and in one case at least, an encounter with a supernatural being. Gothic fare.

In the 28 poems of which Maud: A Monodrama consists, a somewhat mentally fragile young man narrates step by step (almost in stream-of-consciousness) the progress and aftermath of his feelings for Maud, whose father, the owner of the neighboring estate and Hall, he blames for his own father's death and his family's ruin. Many of the themes of the work are related to Tennyson's own experiences and those of his close family.

A tender and elegiac tale, William and Mary was first published in The Century Magazine in December 1920 (vol. 101).

The so-called "Bad Quarto" of Shakespeare's Hamlet is the first known version of this world-famous tragedy. Published in 1603, this text is significantly shorter, has some divergent character names, and contains different renditions of some of the play's most famous lines. Some scholars believe that the Bad Quarto is a pirated edition, written down by one or more of the company actors, while others think that it is Shakespeare's first attempt that he later revised and expanded.

Reality is relative. There is no such thing as universal truth. But lies are always lies. From auctions to assassinations, from cosmos to subconscious mind, the roots feeding into these short stories start fine, but thicken and tangle as they grow deeper. Follow these wayward souls through their darkest moments, each beginning with a bang and each trying desperately to avoid ending with the same.

This classic farce was first performed in 1892. Since the record-breaking initial run in London, it has been revived many times around the world in a variety of languages, and has also been adapted for a number of presentations on film. The play incorporates many of the features which have become standard in romantic comedies: a cross dressing central character, identity confusion, young lovers kept apart by parental influence and older lovers unexpectedly reunited.

Richard Dudgeon, who has become an outcast from his puritanical family due to his religious apostasy, returns home on the death of his father. Much to everyone’s surprise, it is revealed that the father changed his will shortly before his death and has left the bulk of the estate to Richard. Now that he is lord of the manor, Richard asserts himself and declares his opposition to the colonial British authorities. Later, he is arrested by the British and sentenced to death but is rescued in the nick of time by a local militia commanded by Anthony Anderson, who, ironically, is a pastor.

According to George Bernard Shaw, Joan of Arc was in fact one of the first Protestant martyrs. She was one of the first apostles of nationalism, and the first French practitioner of Napoleonic realism in warfare. She also refused to accept the specific woman's lot, and dressed and fought and lived as men did. Shaw's exploration of the story of this ingenuous and eponymous heroine is set in six scenes and an epilogue, which takes place in 1456, when the church cleared Joan of the charge of heresy and condemned her accusers of corruption.

A man was hanged in Reading Gaol during Wilde's imprisonment there. In "The Ballad", written after his release, he tells of the horror of the event and its effect on himself and his fellow prisoners. First published 1898, under the pseudonym C.3.3 - the number by which Wilde was known in the prison, consisting of the cell block, landing number and cell number of his cell.

King Claudius, when a young man, wrote a five-act tragedy which was damned, and all reference to it forbidden under penalty of death. The King has a son - Hamlet - whose tendency to soliloquize has so alarmed his mother, Queen Gertrude, that she has sent for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to devise some Court revels for his entertainment. Rosencrantz is a former lover of Ophelia, to whom Hamlet is betrothed, and they lay their heads together to devise a plan by which Hamlet may be put out of the way. Some Court theatricals are in preparation.

Cole, an old sea captain, lives on a ship with his daughter and her immigrant husband. The trio prepares for a deluge, while Cole meets Daphne, a mermaid who seduces and tempts him. As tensions rise with the rolling tides, Cole must make a difficult choice: take a leap into the unknown, or stay on the safe side. This is a story about connection and separation, about tolerance and the decision to cut ties.

These six plays are Japanese classics from the 14th century and are presented in the order of a traditional Nō programme. Nō, the Japanese word for "skill", is a form of Japanese musical drama that originated in the eighth century, and is the oldest major theatre art that still survives today. Alongside Nō plays were kyōgen plays, which were short works typically inserted as a comedic interlude of sorts between the more classical Nō performances.

Little Stevie just wanted a friend to help make snowmen and snow angels and have fun and games with. Ever unpopular and often lonely, a lot of experiences most children his age have passed him by. A heavy winter brings the town to a standstill, and he seeks the opportunity to play in the snow, but something else is already playing in the snow, and the game it is playing is deadly enough to destroy mankind.

Two British members of Parliament - one an elder conservative, the other a younger man with a liberal bent (and an eye on the older man's daughter) face a difficult choice. Some stranger has left each of them a considerable fortune on condition they give up their well-respected family names and adopt that of Wurzel-Flummery.

This play forms part of a tetralogy which focuses on one of Wedekind's obsessive themes: the destructive interplay between primal sexual urges and social convention. Each play revolves around a powerful young female character, who has the power to control and captivate men, but who in turn is destroyed by the exercise of that power. In Castle Wetterstein, that role is represented by Effie, the young daughter of a bourgeois widow, who is being courted by the man who killed her late husband in a duel.

In the Greek legend, a sculptor, Pygmalion, created a statue of a woman so beautiful that he fell in love with it. Later the goddess Aphrodite responded to his earnest prayers and brought the statue, named Galatea, to life. Shaw's Pygmalion is a fussy unmarried professor of phonetics, Henry Higgins, who claims that he could train an uneducated person off the street to speak so that he or she could pass as a member of the aristocracy. His Galatea is Eliza Doolittle, who sells flowers at Covent Garden and whose father is a dissipated but cunning vagrant.

Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling. Kipling's delightful collection of imaginative tales about natural history has captivated children and adults alike since its publication in 1902. Here stories are presented in dramatic format by members of The Online Stage. Stories include:"How the Whale Got His Throat", "How the Camel Got His Hump", "How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin", "How the Leopard Got His Spots", "The Elephant's Child", "The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo", and more.