The Essential Pinter: Selections from the Work of Harold Pinter

An indispensable companion for anyone wishing to delve into the astonishingly dazzling and frequently ominous world of the Nobel Prize-winning playwright which includes key plays, poetry, essays, and screenplays.

Harold Pinter is one of our most profound poets and playwrights, with work ranging from his plays The Caretaker, The Homecoming, and Betrayal to such poems as "The Bombs" and "Death." A writer known for his searing exploration of power, Pinter gives us an electrifying look into the often uncomfortable relationships between people — whether family members or political opponents. In voyaging in, we not only come to fully appreciate the breadth of a body of work spanning over fifty years, but acquire a better understanding of human interaction.

Harold Pinter was born in the London borough of Hackney in 1930. The Room, Pinter’s first play, was written in 1957 and was performed as a student production and the University of Bristol. Pinter’s second play, and one of his best known, The Birthday Party (1957), was initially ill-received by the critics, but with The Caretaker (1960) Pinter secured his theatrical status. Some of Pinter’s most celebrated theatrical works include Landscape (1968), The Homecoming (1964), Betrayal (1978), and The Go-Between (1980). In 2005, the Swedish Academy awarded Pinter the Nobel Prize in Literature stating that “in his plays [he] uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression’s closed rooms.”