Collected Plays (Paperback)

~ Charles Williams (Author)

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Product Description

Collected Plays Charles Williams Introduction by John Heath-Stubbs 416 pp. / 5 x 8 / Trade Paper / $29.95 Regent ISBN 1-57383-366-5 Reprint of Oxford University Press edition, 1963 Royalties: £150.00 prepaid to Higham Need cover This volume contains the complete dramatic works of Charles Williams. Williams' plays can be enjoyed at more than one level. Though what they have in common is the author's gift for poetic expression, they also demonstrate his range. Complex theology, knockabout farce, and historical tragedy are all represented here. The plays are simple enough for amateur performances but subtle enough to give scope for many interpretations. Thomas Cranmer of Canterbury Judgement at Chelmsford * Seed of Adam The Death of Good Fortune The House by the Stable Grab and Grace or It's the Second Step The House of the Octopus Terror of Light The Three Temptations Charles Williams-novelist, poet, critic, dramatist and biographer-died in his native England in May, 1945. He had a lively and devoted following there and achieved a considerable reputation as a lecturer on the faculty of Oxford University. T. S. Eliot, Dorothy Sayers and C. S. Lewis were among his distinguished friends and literary sponsors. He was also a member of the Inklings, a group of Christian writers that included J.R.R. Tolkien, author of The Lord of the Rings.

Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Regent College Publishing (February 20, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1573833665
• ISBN-13: 978-1573833660
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #551,501 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Skeleton Key, April 24, 2006

By	Gord Wilson "alivingdog.com" (Bellingham, WA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

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How great that this book is back in print. Now I can quote my favorite Charles Williams line, spoken by the skeleton in one of these plays: "The price of heaven, hell or earth is the same: always a broken heart, sometimes a broken neck." Lines like that are why we keep reading.

Mention Charles Williams' plays, and immediately someone comes up with more objections than even to his novels. Let's admit the plays are flawed so the critics will depart satisfied and we can lie back and read them. That indefineable, maddening something quietly lurking at the corners of the novels rages through the plays.

T.S. Eliot, in the view of many, took language as far as it can go in "The Wasteland" and "Four Quartets". Charles Williams doesn't make the journey; he just begins on the other side. The skeleton and other characters stumble dazed as if through the debris of bombed-out London, scavenging through the detrius of words. CW lived outside of his own time, which is why he has become so relevant in ours. For the form of that age was already passing away. The long, dark night of modernism over and done, the pre-modern and post-modern reach and touch one another, as blinking in the dawn we stumble from the rubble.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars finally!, March 22, 2006

By	C. Ahn (Southern California) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I can't say how pleased I am to discover this back in print (I have a rather expensive used copy). I am a huge fan of Charles Williams, and this book is one of my favorites of his, along with the Taliessin poems and All Hallows' Eve-- with the added benefit that it isn't as impenetrable as the Taliessin poems often are. Thomas Cranmer of Canterbury alone is worth (to me) getting the book for, with its sympathetic yet unsparing (even harsh at times-- Cranmer's last scene, ooh) picture of Cranmer mixed with haunting cascading language. Seed of Adam is kind of cool with its rather unorthodox portrayal of Joseph and Adam; The House by the Stable and its sequel are just fun. Terror of Light is perhaps my favorite after Cranmer; the portrayal is just so... right, for example Thomas's rejoicing in rationality and Saul's misplaced (but understood and forgiven) judgmentalism, and Judas's (possibly heretical?) authority even in damnation. The only play I don't love is Judgement at Chelmsford, which is a bit too formal for my taste, with not enough plot, although I'm sure that actually seeing it probably works better than reading it.

If you like plays, and you like Williams' other work, then I recommend this. Of course, there are lots of people out there who don't like his erudite and casually-theological/supernatural style, which I do quite understand, and those probably wouldn't like this either. I would also have to say don't read all the plays at once, as he has some language tricks he *really likes*, and reading them three times in a row is a bit tiresome.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Poise of Everlasting Joys, May 6, 2007

By	Steven McClaskey (Rock Island, IL United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

For Charles Williams Words are everything. Why? We are not God and we don't live in heaven, so Words are the things we must stand by. A Word is much more than an utterance said, or written. It is, for Williams, an act of adoration--or blasphemy. It is the stuff that fills up life and makes it human. Or not. That, I think, is the key to Williams plays. Words do not so such signify as exist. They are bricks. Word upon Word, they build up patterns of being, real or an illusion, something or nothing, an arrangement of truth or lies, fashioned by Words uttered--and lived. God's or yours.