The Beggar's Opera and Polly

‘Gamesters and Highwaymen are generally very good to their Whores, but they are very Devils to their Wives.’

With The Beggar's Opera, John Gay created one of the most enduringly popular works in English theatre history, and invented a new dramatic form, the ballad opera. Gay's daring mixture of caustic political satire, well-loved popular tunes, and a story of crime and betrayal set in the urban underworld of prostitutes and thieves was an overnight sensation. And its sequel, Polly, banned in Gay's lifetime, boasted a cross-dressing heroine and a cast of female adventurers, pirates, Indian princes, rebel slaves, and rapacious landowners — a culture in which all human relationships are reduced to commercial transactions.

• Author
• John Gay, Hal Gladfelder

• Format
• paperback

• Pages
• 207

• Publisher
• Oxford University Press

• Language
• english

• ISBN
• 9780199642229

• Genres
• plays, classics, drama, crime

• Release date
• 2013