Danton's Death

A collection of Buchner's three plays with an introduction by Price and a new chronology of the author. The revised translations attempt to reflect discoveries about Buchner's intentions. The German writer, Georg Buchner, died in 1837 at the age of 23 and left only three works for the theatre, one a fragment. "Danton's Death", his play about the French Revolution was written in five weeks when the 21 year old medical student was under threat of arrest for his own revolutionary activities. His romantic black comedy "Leonce and Lena" was composed in haste for a publisher's competition for which it was entered too late. "Woyzeck", on which Alban Berg based his opera, was left unfinished at Buchner's death. All three works remained virtually unknown for half a century and the first stage production of any of them was in 1895. Today the plays are being performed with greater frequency.