Five Plays is the eighth book by Anglo-

Anglo-Irish

Anglo-Irish was a term used primarily in the 19th and early 20th centuries to identify a privileged social class in Ireland, whose members were the descendants and successors of the Protestant Ascendancy, mostly belonging to the Church of Ireland, which was the established church of Ireland until...

Irish

Irish literature

For a comparatively small island, Ireland has made a disproportionately large contribution to world literature. Irish literature encompasses the Irish and English languages.-The beginning of writing in Irish:...

 fantasy

Fantasy

Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...

 writer Lord Dunsany, considered a major influence on the work of J. R. R. Tolkien

J. R. R. Tolkien

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...

, H. P. Lovecraft

H. P. Lovecraft

Howard Phillips Lovecraft --often credited as H.P. Lovecraft — was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction....

, Ursula K. Le Guin

Ursula K. Le Guin

Ursula Kroeber Le Guin is an American author. She has written novels, poetry, children's books, essays, and short stories, notably in fantasy and science fiction...

 and others. It was first published in hardcover by Grant Richards in February, 1914, and has been reprinted a number of times since.

The book is actually Dunsany's sixth major work, two of his preceding books having been chapbooks or selections from his other works.

In contrast to most of Dunsany's other early books, Five Plays is a collection of dramatic works, the first of several such collections. All of the included plays were performed many times.

Contents

• "The Gods of the Mountain"
• "The Golden Doom"
• "King Argimenes and the Unknown Warrior"
• "The Glittering Gate"
• "The Lost Silk Hat"