Drama

The Playboy of the Western World

by J. M. Synge

Christy Mahon arrives at a pub in Mayo claiming to have killed his father, and the whole village falls in love with him for it. When the play opened at the Abbey Theatre in January 1907 the audience rioted, partly over the word “shift”. Synge’s language, taken from the talk he heard in the west, is as rich as anything in English.

The librarian

Read it in the Library After Dark Or read it as plain text

Reading time

About 1 hr 25 min

Where to find it

On the Drama shelves

Edition

Project Gutenberg, eBook #1240. In the public domain in the United States.