Bertolt Brecht - Plays, Poetry & Prose (20 books)

BERTOLT BRECHT (1898-1956) was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director. He was a lifelong committed Marxist who developed the theory and practice of his "epic theatre" to explore the theatre as a forum for political ideas and the creation of a critical aesthetics of dialectical materialism. In 1949 he and his wife established the Berliner Ensemble, perhaps the most famous German touring theatre of the postwar era, primarily devoted to performing Brecht's plays.

Few areas of modern theatrical culture have not felt the impact or influence of Brecht's ideas and practices. His theories and techniques have also exerted considerable sway over certain strands of film theory and cinematic practice.


The following books are in PDF format ("Mother Courage" is also available as an ePUB), all of which are improved versions of older scans, in which the page images have been completely reprocessed with contents in bookmarks and accurate pagination.

* BRECHT ON THEATRE: The Development of an Aesthetic (Methuen, 1974). Edited and translated by John Willett.

* THE CAUCASIAN CHALK CIRCLE (Grove, 1965). Revised translation with an Introduction and Appendix by Eric Bentley.

* THE CAUCASIAN CHALK CIRCLE (University of Minnesota Press, 1999). Translated by Eric Bentley with a new Preface and Comments.

* COLLECTED PLAYS, Volume 1: Baal / Drums in the Night / In the Jungle of Cities / The Life of Edward the Second of England / Five One-Act Plays (Vintage, 1971). Edited by Ralph Manheim and John Willett.

* COLLECTED PLAYS, Volume 4, Part 3: Fear and Misery of the Third Reich / Señora Carrar's Rifles (Methuen, 1983). Edited by John Willett and Ralph Manheim.

* EDWARD II: A Chronicle Play (Grove, 1966). Translated with an Introduction by Eric Bentley.

* GALILEO (Grove, 1966). Translated by Charles Laughton; edited with an Introduction by Eric Bentley.

* THE GOOD WOMAN OF SETZUAN (Grove, 1965). Revised English translation and Introduction by Eric Bentley.

* THE JEWISH WIFE & OTHER SHORT PLAYS (Grove, 1965). Translated by Eric Bentley.

* MANUAL OF PIETY (Die Hauspostille) (Grove, 1966). Bilingual edition. Translated by Eric Bentley with Notes by Hugo Schmidt.

* THE MOTHER (Grove, 1965). Translated with an Introduction by Lee Baxandall, with Notes by the Author.

* MOTHER COURAGE AND HER CHILDREN: A Chronicle of the Thirty Years' War (Grove, 1966). Translated by Eric Bentley.

* MOTHER COURAGE AND HER CHILDREN: A Chronicle of the Thirty Years' War (Samuel French, 2010). Translated by Eric Bentley. -- ePUB

* POEMS, 1913-1956 (Methuen, 1976). Edited by John Willett and Ralph Manheim with the co-operation of Erich Fried.

* POETRY AND PROSE (Continuum, 2003). Edited by Reinhold Grimm with the collaboration of Caroline Molina y Vedia.

* THE PRIVATE LIFE OF THE MASTER RACE: A Documentary Play (Gollancz, 1948). Translated by Eric Bentley with an Essay on the work of Brecht.

* SAINT JOAN OF THE STOCKYARDS (Indiana UP, 1969). Translated by Frank Jones, with an Introduction by Frederic Grab.

* STORIES OF MR. KEUNER (City Lights, 2001). Translated with an Afterword by Martin Chalmers.

* TWO PLAYS: The Good Woman of Setzuan / The Caucasian Chalk Circle (Meridian, 1983). Revised English translations by Eric Bentley.

* THE VISIONS OF SIMONE MACHARD [with Lion Feuchtwanger] (Grove, 1965). Translated with a Preface by Carl Richard Mueller.