The Project Gutenberg EBook of Plays by August Strindberg, Second series
by August Strindberg

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Title: Plays by August Strindberg, Second series

Author: August Strindberg

Release Date: December 13, 2004 [EBook #14347]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PLAYS BY STRINDBERG ***

Produced by Nicole Apostola

PLAYS BY AUGUST STRINDBERG

SECOND SERIES

THERE ARE CRIMES AND CRIMES
MISS JULIA
THE STRONGER
CREDITORS
PARIAH

TRANSLATED WITH INTRODUCTIONS BY EDWIN BJOeRKMAN

AUTHORIZED EDITION

CONTENTS

Introduction to "There Are Crimes and Crimes"
THERE ARE CRIMES AND CRIMES

Introduction to "Miss Julia"
Author's Preface
MISS JULIA

Introduction to "The Stronger"
THE STRONGER

Introduction to "Creditors"
CREDITORS

Introduction to "Pariah"
PARIAH

THERE ARE CRIMES AND CRIMES
INTRODUCTION

Strindberg was fifty years old when he wrote "There Are Crimes and
Crimes." In the same year, 1899, he produced three of his finest
historical dramas: "The Saga of the Folkungs," "Gustavus Vasa,"
and "Eric XIV." Just before, he had finished "Advent," which he
described as "A Mystery," and which was published together with
"There Are Crimes and Crimes" under the common title of "In a
Higher Court." Back of these dramas lay his strange confessional
works, "Inferno" and "Legends," and the first two parts of his
autobiographical dream-play, "Toward Damascus"--all of which were
finished between May, 1897, and some time in the latter part of
1898. And back of these again lay that period of mental crisis,
when, at Paris, in 1895 and 1896, he strove to make gold by the
transmutation of baser metals, while at the same time his spirit
was travelling through all the seven hells in its search for the
heaven promised by the great mystics of the past.

"There Are Crimes and Crimes" may, in fact, be regarded as his
first definite step beyond that crisis, of which the preceding
works were at once the record and closing chord. When, in 1909, he
issued "The Author," being a long withheld fourth part of his
first autobiographical series, "The Bondwoman's Son," he prefixed
to it an analytical summa