Harold Pinter

In an old and slightly seedy house in North London there lives a family of men: Max, the aging but still aggressive patriarch; his younger, ineffectual brother Sam; and two of Max's three sons, neither of whom is married -- Lenny, a small-time pimp, and Joey, who dreams of success as a boxer. Into this sinister abode comes the eldest son, Teddy, who, having spent the past six years teaching philosophy in America, is now bringinghis wife, Ruth, home to visit the family she has never met. As the play progresses, the younger brothers make increasingly outrageous passes at their sister-in-law until they are practically making love to her in front of her stunned but strangely aloof husband.

Two years after their affair has ended, Emma and Jerry--her husband's best friend--meet and reflect on their illicit relationship

Two plays by the Nobel Prize-winning author explore class, privilege, dissent, poverty, and democracy.

Harold Pinter's first and only novel, written in the early 1950s before he began writing plays. The novel is set in post-war London's East End, a landscape of bomb-sites, and describes the lives of four young Londoners whose energy and humour lift them above the routine austerity of the time.

This volume contains a selection of early works by Harold Pinter. In the title play, everything in Flora's garden is lovely, and would be for Edward too, if it were not for the slight ache in his eyes and the mysterious matchseller at the gate. This edition also includes A Night Out, The Dwarfs and several revue sketches.

This play was first performed in 1960. Harold Pinter specializes in the tragicomedy of the breakdown of communication, broadly in the tradition of the theatre of the absurds and this is demonstrated in both "The Caretaker" and "The Birthday Party".

Stanley Webber is visited in his boarding-house by two strangers, Goldberg and McCann. An innocent-seeming birthday party for Stanley turns into a nightmare.

When Teddy, a professor in an American university, brings his wife Ruth to visit London and his family, he finds himself prey to old conflicts. But now it is Ruth who becomes the focus of the family's struggle for supremacy. The playwright's other works include "The Birthday Party" and "Old Times".

Focusing on the brutalities of a society which forbids a minority of its population to speak in their own language, it is a play of few words which add up to an eloquent indictment of the banning of any human utterance.'

Deborah was a lively 16-year-old and part of a close-knit family when she fell victim to sleeping sickness. Twenty-nine years later, having been watched over throughout by the same doctor, she comes to life and gradually tries to adjust to the world around her.

Written as a series of monologues featuring an exchange of letters between a mother and her absent son. The mother's desperate attempts to bring her son back to her from his lodgings in a sleazy London boarding house become more ill-attuned, serving only to accentuate the irreparable rift between them.

The Controller of a radio-cab firm is trying to contact Driver 274 and get him to pick up a fare at Victoria Station.

Teddy arrives home to pay his family a visit with his wife Ruth, who settles into the household as if into a well-known niche. Teddy's brothe's and his father all take it for granted that she is anyone's for the asking - and she is. It is then'suggested that they should set her up in trade, in a little flat in Soho. Calmly Ruth lists the conditions she requires before accepting, barely batting an eyelid as Teddy returns to America.

Goldberg and McCann arrive at a seaside boarding house where Meg and Petey live with their guest Stanley. They inquire about Stanley: we soon find out that McCann and Goldberg have a job to do. Learning it is his birthday they give Stanley a party at which Stanley is verbally bludgeoned into submission. The next day Stanley is removed. It is the collective impact of the dialogue which welds they seemingly inexplicable actions of Goldberg and McCann into a menacing whole.

Gus and Ben are on the job, waiting and listening. Into the waiting silence rattles the dumb waiter with extraordinary demands for dishes they cannot supply - and who is operating the dumb waiter in an empty house? In a while their victim will come and they will know what to do.

Into his derelict household shrine Aston brings Davies, a tramp - but a tramp with pretensions, even if to the world he may be a pathetic old creature. All that is left of his past now is the existence in Sidcup of some papers, papers that will prove exactly who he is and enable him to start again. Aston, too, has his dreams: he has always been good with his hands and there is so much to do in the house. Aston's hopes are tied to his flash brother Mick's; he has aspirations to live in a luxurious apartment. Human nature is a great spoiler of plans, however ...