Poetry, Plays & Short Stories

The Confidential Clerk was first produced at the Edinburgh Festival in the summer of 1953. 'The dialogue of The Confidential Clerk has a precision and a lightly felt rhythm unmatched in the writing of any contemporary dramatist.'…

The story of Big Maggie Polpin and her attempts to keep her family together after the death of her husband is an enduring theatre favourite. The dialogue crackles with hilarious, caustic putdowns as the indomitable Maggie deals wi…

John Millington Synge's classic work set in Mayo. A mysterious traveller, Christy Mahon, arrives in the village believing he has killed his father. He is looked upon as a hero by the locals and falls in love with one of them, Pege…

Since his debut, New Weather (1973), Paul Muldoon has created some of the most original and memorable poetry of the past half-century. Joy in Service on Rue Tagore sees him writing with the same verve and distinction that have con…

How do we love, trust and create in the aftermath of trauma? How do we name and speak that love?In this powerful new collection from acclaimed poet and novelist Elaine Feeney, images andmemory circle and recur, and the journey fro…

The first ever collection of poems by the acclaimed author of the Aubrey/Maturin series of Napoleonic naval adventures. As we have stood with Jack and Stephen on the deck of the Surprise and other ships, readers around the world h…

The belly groan of a face unpeeled. A break-up poem recited knee-deep in bog water. An ancient burial mound rising and falling like a chest.The ghost of Stephen Gately reading the ingredients on a ham and cheese sandwich. Startlin…

In the first half of the 20th century, the men and women of Ireland experienced the brutal realities of a succession of wars - from the unrelenting casualties of WW1, to the domestic upheavals of the 1916 Rising and the Irish Civi…

"A few years ago my husband recommended me for a job in his company, and I thought it would be fun, and soa woman named Rosaleen would ring me for a chat. Rosaleen was a senior director in the firm, and these were scheduled chats,…

The new collection from the legendary Atwood is led by the story of a married couple as they travel the road together, the moments big and small that make up a long life of love -- and what comes after My heart is broken, Nell thi…

With an Introduction and Notes by Sally Minogue?Dylan Thomas wrote some of the best-known and best-loved poems of the twentieth century, amongst them ‘Do not go gentle into that good night’, ‘Fern Hill’ and ‘The force that through…

Throughout these poems, with their roaming sense of first-person, there is depth at work where the speakers' minds are cavernous and echoic, primal and sophisticated, observant and raw, in and out of control of themselves. The eff…

This inspiring collection, curated by the host of the Poetry Unbound, presents fifty poems about what it means to be alive in the world today. Each poem is paired with Pádraig's illuminating commentary that offers personal anecdot…

Sweeping through crumbling towns, travelling fairs and windswept ports, Gabriel Garci­a Marquez introduces a host of extraordinary characters and communities in his mesmerising tales of everyday life: smugglers, bagpipers, the Pre…

Originally published in 1925, A Golden Treasury of Irish Verse is an impressive and beautifully crafted collection of the best of Irish poetry from ancient times to the early twentieth century. It features folklore and legend, oft…

A writer in a totalitarian state is interrogated about the gruesome content of his short stories and their similarities to a number of child-murders that are happening in his town. 'Sometimes you don't even know what you've been c…

The Beauty Queen of Leenane was first presented as a Druid Theatre/Royal Court Theatre co-production in January 1996. Set in the mountains of Connemara, County Galway, The Beauty Queen of Leenane tells the darkly comic tale of Ma…

With an Introduction by Donald McFarlan. Robert Burns, the most celebrated of all Scottish poets, is remembered with great devotion - his birthday on 25th January provokes fervour and festivity among Scots and many others the wor…

Subtitled 'A tragicomedy in two Acts', and famously described by the Irish critic Vivien Mercier as a play in which 'nothing happens, twice', En attendant Godot was first performed at the Théâtre de Babylone in Paris in 1953. It w…

In Nocturnes, Kazuo Ishiguro explores ideas of love, music and the passing of time. From the piazzas of Italy to the 'hush-hush floor' of an exclusive Hollywood Hotel, the characters we encounter range from young dreamers to cafe …

Winner of the Sunday Times short story prize Winner of the Edge Hill short story prize A kiss that just won't happen. A disco at the end of the world. A teenage goth on a terror mission.And OAP kiddie-snatchers, and scouse real-al…

In 1934, the people of Inishmaan learn that the Hollywood director Robert Flaherty is coming to the neighbouring island to film his documentary Man of Aran. No one is more excited than Billy, an unloved and crippled boy whose chie…

The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses is a book of poems written by Charles Bukowski for Jane, his first love. These poems explore a more emotional side to Charles Bukowski.

A forceful and moving final volume from one of the most masterful poets of the twentieth century.Throughout her nearly sixty-year career, acclaimed poet Eavan Boland came to be known for her exquisite ability to weave myth, histor…

Ariel, first published in 1965, contains many of Sylvia Plath's best-known poems, written in an extraordinary burst of creativity just before her death in 1963. Including poems such as 'Lady Lazarus', 'Edge', 'Daddy' and 'Paralyti…

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire is the tale of a catastrophic confrontation between fantasy and reality, embodied in the characters of Blanche DuBois and Stanley Kowalski. This Penguin …

In 1934, the people of Inishman learn that the Hollywood director Robert Flaherty is coming to the neighbouring island to film his documentary Man of Aran. No-one is more excited than Cripple Billy, an unloved boy whose chief occu…

The story of how the small community of Salem is stirred into madness by superstition, paranoia and malice, culminating in a violent climax, is a savage attack on the evils of mindless persecution and the terrifying power of false…

Daphne is unbearably sad and adrift. She feels the painful loss of her father acutely and seeks solace both in the security of her local library and the escape her phone screen provides by blocking out the world around her. As Dap…

Ever since it was first performed in 1949, Death of a Salesman has been recognized as a milestone of the American theater. In the person of Willy Loman, the aging, failing salesman who makes his living riding on a smile and a shoe…