Showing results by narrator "Mark Groves" in All Categories

Lovers' Vows is Elizabeth Inchbald's controversial adaptation of the German play Das Kind der Liebe (The Love Child) by August von Kotzebue. Though it met with great success both on stage and in print, some were concerned discussion of premarital sex and the leveling of social rank. Today, it is best known as the play that the Mansfield Theatricals rehearse in Jane Austen's Mansfield Park.

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 this play, the dominant female is Fräulein Elfriede von Malchus, an idealistic crusader who visits a brothel operated by the cynical impresario Casti-Piani in order to rescue a young woman who has fallen into his clutches.

Walter Tevis is widely regarded as a master for both his gritty poolhall novels and his brilliant rendering of the world of competitive chess. This long-overdue collection establishes Tevis's rightful place as a maestro of the short form, as well. Including previously unpublished stories from journals and magazines, this entertaining collection showcases Tevis's characteristic perceptiveness, empathy, and range.