First World War Plays: Night Watches, Mine Eyes Have Seen, Tunnel Trench, Post Mortem, Oh What A Lovely War, The Accrington Pals, Sea and Land and Sky [Hardcover]

The First World War (19141918) marked a turning point in modern history and culture and its literary legacy is vast: poetry, fiction and memoirs abound. But the drama of the period is rarely recognised, with only a handful of plays commonly associated with the war.

First World War Playsdraws together canonical and lesser-known plays from the First World War to the end of the twentieth century, tracing the ways in which dramatists have engaged with and resisted World War I in their works. Spanning almost a century of conflict, this anthology explores the changing cultural attitudes to warfare, including the significance of the war over time, interwar pacifism, and historical revisionism. The collection includes writing by combatants, as well as playwrights addressing historical events and national memory, by both men and women, and by writers from Great Britain and the United States.

Plays from the period, likeNight Watchesby Allan Monkhouse (1916),Mine Eyes Have Seenby Alice Dunbar-Nelson (1918) andTunnel Trenchby Hubert Griffith (1924), are joined with reflections on the war inPost Mortemby No?l Coward (1930, performed 1944) andOh What A Lovely Warby Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop (1963) as well as later worksThe Accrington Palsby Peter Whelan (1982) andSea and Land and Skyby Abigail Docherty (2010).

Accompanied by a general introduction by editor, Dr Mark Rawlinson.

Mark Rawlinsonis a Reader in English Literature at the University of Leicester, UK. His research has a particular focus on the literature of war.British Writing of the Second World War(2000) was a study of the literary culture of wartime Britain (1939-1945). He has written a book-length study of Pat Barker's fiction, focusing on her representation of the Great War, and was co-editor, with Adam Piette, ofThe Edinburgh Companion to Twentieth Century British and American War Literature(2012).