Alice in Bed: A Play - Softcover

Sontag, Susan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0374523851 ISBN 13: 9780374523855

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1993

Synopsis

Alice in Bed is a free dramatic fantasy which merges the life of Alice James, the brilliant sister of William and Henry James, with the heroine of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. It is a play about the anguish and grief and rage of women; and about the triumphs and limitations of the imagination.

About this title

From the Back Cover

Alice in Bed is a free dramatic fantasy based on the life of Alice James (1848-92), the brilliant sister of William and Henry James. The waters of depression closed over Alice James when she was nineteen; she tried to summon the courage to commit suicide, she suffered from a variety of vague and debilitating ailments, she went abroad, she stayed in bed, she kept a diary, and she died... at age forty-three. In Susan Sontag's play, Alice James merges imaginatively with the other great Alice of her period, the heroine of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. A tea party is convened where Alice is counseled by Emily Dickinson and Margaret Fuller and by two exemplary angry women from the nineteenth-century stage: Myrtha, the Queen of the Wilis (from Giselle), and Kundry (from Wagner's Parsifal), the guilt-ridden woman who wants to sleep. Alice in Bed is a play about the anguish and grief and rage of women, about mental traveling, about the triumphs and limitations of the imagination. It is a powerful and memorable addition to Susan Sontag's achievement as a writer.

About the Author

Susan Sontag was the author of four novels, including In America, which won the 2000 National Book Award for Fiction; a collection of stories; several plays; and seven works of nonfiction. She died in New York City on December 28, 2004.

About this edition

• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0374523851
• ISBN 13: 9780374523855
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 117