About the Plays:

Through their sheer range, daring innovation, flawed but eloquent characters and intriguing plots, the plays of Euripides have stimulated and stimulated audiences since the fifth century BC. This volume, containing Phoenician Women, The Bacchae, Iphigenia at Aulis, Orestes, and Rhesus, also includes a timeline, prefaces to each play, notes, a glossary and guidance to further reading.

Phoenician Women portrays the rival sons of King Oedipus and their mother's doomed attempts at reconciliation.

Orestes shows a son ravaged with guilt after the vengeful murder of his mother.

In The Bacchae, Pentheus, the king of Thebes, mistreats a newcomer to his land, little knowing that he is the Greek god Dionysus disguised as a mortal.

In Iphigenia at Aulis, the Greek leaders take the horrific decision to sacrifice a princess to gain favour from the gods in their mission to Troy.

The Rhesus depicts a world of espionage between the warring Greek and Trojan camps.

About the Playwright:

Euripides was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him, of these, eighteen or nineteen have survived complete. Euripides is identified with theatrical innovations that have profoundly influenced drama down to modern times, especially in the representation of traditional, mythical heroes as ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. This new approach led him to pioneer developments that later writers adapted to comedy, some of which are characteristic of romance.