One of Tennessee Williams' most popular plays in a special annotated edition for school and college students. It provides the author's favoured text along with a selection of notes, commentary and questions for study.

'The thrill of shattered glass and the piercing pain of unfulfilled longing: this revival by Braham Murray resounds with the high-pitched sound of both' The Times - Sam Marlowe 'Menagerie is a claustrophobic play about people struggling to get away from the harsh realities of their circumstances and live their dreams. It is as much about the post-Depression American Dream as it is about personal aspiration.' Guardian - Lyn Gardner 'If ever a play were informed by its author's biography, it is Tennessee William's memory play, a delicate, almost Chekhovian drama flecked with regret and guilt. Like the narrator, young Tom Wingfield, Williams undertook a Houdini-like disappearing trick to escape his family in St Louis and become a writer. Like Tom, he could never entirely blow the candle of memory out. It flickers and splutters through all his best work.' Guardian - Lyn Gardner 'The play works its melancholy magic' Guardian - Lyn Gardner 'Williams's blunt reminder about the fragility of hope' Evening Standard - Fiona Mountford, 18.11.10 '[Williams's] forte was poignant psychological detail seen through a prism of laughter' Guardian - Michael Billington, 18.11.10 'A "memory play", dealing in reality remembered and so coloured by emotion' Financial Times - Sarah Hemming, 19.11.10 'Williams caught the self-sufficiency of provincial America, its economic rigour and its social restraint' Daily Mail - Quentin Letts, 19.11.10 'On the face of it, an autobiographical Depression tale, but its themes are universal: hope, fragility, trapped lives' The Times - Libby Purves, 19.11.10 'The 1944 play that propelled him into the major league of American dramatists' Independent - Paul Taylor, 19.11.10 'Tennessee Williams's most fond and disturbing play' Observer - Susannah Clapp, 21.11.10 'A truth about Williams's own leaving of his family will be told through the story of a lame girl who is crippled with shyness, her ambitious fantasist of a mother, the brother who wants to escape, a boy who calls, and some transparent, barely touchable animal ornaments' Observer - Susannah Clapp, 21.11.10 'The near-misses and half-truths of this play about lost love go straight to the heart' Observer - Susannah Clapp, 21.11.10 'Melancholy is woven into the fabric of Tennessee Williams's 1944 play' Sunday Times - Maxie Szalwinska, 21.11.10 'The most touching, tender and painful of his works' Daily Telegraph - Charles Spencer, 23.11.10 '[The play] has a poetry and compassion about it that rings constantly true, with passages that cut to the heart like a knife'...'A masterpiece.' Daily Telegraph - Charles Spencer, 23.11.10 'One of the greatest theatrical achievements of illusion and disappointment' Time Out London - Robert Shore, 25.11.10

'One of Tennessee Williams' most beautiful, haunting and generous plays.' Sunday Times The writer's first great popular success, the play launched the brilliant career of this ground-breaking American playwright. A staple text on Drama and Literature courses. Expert commentary and notes for students, including questions for further study, a chronology of the writer's life and work and a bibliography. Alongside Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams was of the greatest American playwrights of the twentieth century.

"Must-haves for any students exploring these modern classics, or indeed anyone teaching Literature or Drama." – Teach Secondary Methuen Drama Student Editions are expertly annotated texts of modern and classic plays designed for students' study. Each one offers the complete text of the play as well as contemporary commentary, written by experts in the field, that provides students with an in-depth look into the background, themes and history of the play. They include: - An introduction giving a complete background to the play and a discussion of the social, political, cultural and economic context in which the play was originally conceived and created. - A chronology of the playwright’s life and work, and review of the play’s production history. - Questions for further study and preparation for examinations along with suggestions for primary and secondary materials for further study.