About the Book:

This volume makes available an international collection of plays, from Britain, the US, Germany, France and Russia, depicting types of homosexual or same-sex love.

Lovesick brings together six plays that are either previously unpublished in English or at all. Each comes enhanced with individual introductions, including an author biography and a production history and contextual documentation, including contemporary reviews and illustrations.

The plays included in Lovesick are:

The Blackmailers, a society comedy, by Oscar Wilde's associates John Gray and Andre Raffalovich.

At Saint Judas', a symbolist one-act play of unrequited love, by Henry Blake Fuller.

Mistakes, a problem drama about social persecution, by Herbert Hirschberg.

The Dangerous Precaution, a poetic fable of cross-dressing, by Mikhail Kuzman.

The Gentlemen of Chrysanthemums, a comedy of manners about the homosexual as celebrity, by Armory.

Ania and Esther, a lyrical drama of troubled adolescence, by Klaus Mann.

The volume includes a substantial introduction by the editor Laurence Senelick, providing a valuable information about the ancestry of gay theatre and queer performance.

Making available a legacy of homosexual dramas of the past, the anthology Lovesick is a must-have volume for researchers and students of theatre history and lesbian and gay studies. It will also be of compelling interest to those within comparative literature, cultural studies, and sexology, as well as actors, directors, and theatre lovers.

What people say:

"Senelick provides lucid, jargon-free introductions — to the book and to each play ... Oversized, with double-columned print, the book is worth its price and should be in all academic and large public libraries." — Choice

"Besides the history of queer drama, this priceless primer provides an entertaining and enlightening look at the lost vernacular and sordid situations of our queer past." — The Advocate

"[These plays] represent an important piece of gay and lesbian history. Recommended for theater arts and gay/lesbian collections." — Library Journal

About the Author:

Laurence Senelick is the Director of Graduate Studies, Fletcher Professor of Drama and Oratory. He holds a Ph.D. from Harvard. His expertise is in Russian theatre and drama, history of popular entertainment, gender and performance, history of directing, and classical theory. He is the author or editor of more than twenty-five books, including Lovesick.