The Project Gutenberg EBook of Plays of Near & Far, by Lord Dunsany

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Title: Plays of Near & Far

Author: Lord Dunsany

Release Date: September 27, 2006 [EBook #19393]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Plays of Near & Far

_By_

LORD DUNSANY

G. P. Putnam's Sons
London & New York

MADE IN GREAT BRITAIN

_First printed December, 1922_

_Limited Edition: Five Hundred Copies only_

_Printed by the_
BOTOLPH PRINTING WORKS
GATE ST., KINGSWAY, W.C.2

_By_ LORD DUNSANY

THE GODS OF PEGANA
TIME AND THE GODS
THE SWORD OF WELLERAN
A DREAMER'S TALES
THE BOOK OF WONDER
FIVE PLAYS
FIFTY-ONE TALES
TALES OF WONDER
PLAYS OF GODS AND MEN
TALES OF WAR
UNHAPPY FAR-OFF THINGS
TALES OF THREE HEMISPHERES
IF
THE CHRONICLES OF RODRIGUEZ

PREFACE

Believing plays to be solely for the stage, I have never before allowed
any of mine to be printed until they had first faced from a stage the
judgment of an audience, to see if they were entitled to be called plays
at all. A successful production also has been sometimes a moral support
to me when some critic has said, as for instance of "A Night at an Inn,"
that though it reads passably it could never act.

But in this book I have made an exception to this good rule (as it seems
to me), and that exception is "The Flight of the Queen." I know too
little of managers and theatres to know what to do with it, and have a
feeling that it will be long before it is ever acted, and am too fond of
this play to leave it in obscurity. This beautiful story has been lying
about the world for countless centuries, without ever having been
dramatized. It is the story of a royal court, which I have merely
adapted to the stage. The date that I have given is accurate; it
happened in June; and happens every June; perhaps in some corner of the
reader's garden. It is the story of the bees.

As for "The Compromise of the King of the Golden Isles," it is just the
sort of play through which those that hunt for allegories might hunt
merrily, unless I m