Strictly Dishonorable and Other Lost American Plays - Paperback

by Richard Nelson (Editor)

These lively dramas from the twenties and thirties evoke a world of gangsters on the lam, crooked cops on the take, intrepid newspapermen hungry for a scoop, and slightly tarnished damsels in distress. Reading them, it's hard to imagine how they ever got lost in the first place. But thanks to Richard Nelson's dramaturgical sleuthing, they're back and as compelling as ever.

The four plays included in this volume are:

• Strictly Dishonorable by Preston Sturges


• The Racket by Bartlett Cormack


• The Ghost of Yankee Doodle by Sidney Howard


• A Slight Case of Murder by Howard Lindsay and Damon Runyon.

Author Biography

Richard Nelson's many plays include Illyria; The Gabriels: Election Year in the Life of One Family (Hungry, What Did You Expect?, and Women of a Certain Age); The Apple Family: Scenes from Life in the Country (That Hopey Changey Thing, Sweet and Sad, and Sorry, Regular Singing); Nikolai and the Others; Goodnight Children Everywhere (Olivier Award for Best Play); Franny's Way; Some Americans Abroad; Frank's Home; Two Shakespearean Actors; and James Joyce's The Dead (with Shaun Davey; Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical). He has also written for film, namely the screenplays for Hyde Park-on-Hudson and Ethan Frome. He is the recipient of the PEN/Laura Pels Master Playwright Award and an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is an Honorary Associate Artist of the Royal Shakespeare Company.