
Look Back in Anger
John Osborne(Author)
Faber & Faber (Publisher)
Published on 6. November 1978
Book
Paperback/Softback
144 pages
978-0-571-03848-0 (ISBN)
Description
Anyone who's never watched someone die is suffering from a pretty bad case of virginity.
Look Back in Anger premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in 1956.
'John Osborne didn't contribute to British theatre: he set off a landmine called Look Back in Anger and blew most of it up.' Alan Sillitoe
'A story of youthful insecurity inflamed by lack of opportunity and the terrifying, destabilizing force of love . . . Jimmy Porter could fill an opera house with his bellowing hunger for a bigger, better life and a loyal love to share it with.' New York Times
'Look Back in Anger presents post-war youth as it really is. To have done this at all would be a signal achievement; to have done it in a first play is a minor miracle. All the qualities are there, qualities one had despaired of ever seeing on the stage - the drift towards anarchy, the instinctive leftishness, the automatic rejection of "official" attitudes, the surrealist sense of humour, the casual promiscuity, the sense of lacking a crusade worth fighting for and, underlying all these, the determination that no one who dies shall go unmourned . . . I doubt if I could love anyone who did not wish to see Look Back in Anger. It is the best young play of its decade.' Kenneth Tynan, Observer
'How bracing, and, yes, even shocking, its white-hot fury remains.' The Times
This edition includes an introduction by Michael Billington and an afterword by David Hare.
Look Back in Anger premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in 1956.
'John Osborne didn't contribute to British theatre: he set off a landmine called Look Back in Anger and blew most of it up.' Alan Sillitoe
'A story of youthful insecurity inflamed by lack of opportunity and the terrifying, destabilizing force of love . . . Jimmy Porter could fill an opera house with his bellowing hunger for a bigger, better life and a loyal love to share it with.' New York Times
'Look Back in Anger presents post-war youth as it really is. To have done this at all would be a signal achievement; to have done it in a first play is a minor miracle. All the qualities are there, qualities one had despaired of ever seeing on the stage - the drift towards anarchy, the instinctive leftishness, the automatic rejection of "official" attitudes, the surrealist sense of humour, the casual promiscuity, the sense of lacking a crusade worth fighting for and, underlying all these, the determination that no one who dies shall go unmourned . . . I doubt if I could love anyone who did not wish to see Look Back in Anger. It is the best young play of its decade.' Kenneth Tynan, Observer
'How bracing, and, yes, even shocking, its white-hot fury remains.' The Times
This edition includes an introduction by Michael Billington and an afterword by David Hare.
More details
Edition
Main
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Target group
Primary & secondary/elementary & high school
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 200 mm
Width: 126 mm
Thickness: 12 mm
Weight
130 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-571-03848-0 (9780571038480)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Person
John Osborne was born in London in 1929. His plays include Look Back in Anger (1956), The Entertainer (1957), Luther (1961), Inadmissible Evidence (1964), and A Patriot for Me (1966). Both Look Back in Anger and The Entertainer were adapted for film, and in 1963 Osborne won an Academy Award for his screenplay for Tom Jones. John Osborne died on 24 December 1994.