A01=John Gay
after books box set
all night long
Author_John Gay
black watch
Category=DD
classic
classic literature
comedy
drama
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_poetry
greek plays
hedda gabler
long days journey into night
monologues
musical theatre
national theatre
night school
oscar wilde
play
plays
richard iii
samuel beckett
shakespeare
talking heads
the alchemist
the crucible
the way we live now
twelfth night
underworld london
waiting for godot
women
Product details
- ISBN 9780140432206
- Weight: 103g
- Dimensions: 130 x 198mm
- Publication Date: 28 Aug 1986
- Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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The tale of Peachum, thief-taker and informer, conspiring to send the dashing and promiscuous highwayman Macheath to the gallows, became the theatrical sensation of the eighteenth century.
In THE BEGGAR'S OPERA, John Gay turned conventions of Italian opera riotously upside-down, instead using traditional popular ballads and street tunes, while also indulging in political satire at the expense of the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole. Gay's highly original depiction of the thieves, informers, prostitutes and highwaymen thronging the slums and prisons of the corrupt London underworld proved brilliantly successful in exposing the dark side of a corrupt and jaded society.
Born in 1685, John Gay's first major success was THE SHEPHERD'S WEEK. It was followed by a number of other works, the most enduring of which is THE BEGGAR'S OPERA. Gay died in 1732, and is remembered as a popular and genial man whose self-penned epitaph reads 'Life is a jest, and all things show it, I thought it once, and now I know it'.
