The Tragedies & Tragic-Comedies

Although Lady Gregory's first plays were comedies, she preferred writing tragedies which she found easier. As Ann Saddlemyer writes in her foreword to this volume: "In the tragic form, with the character of comedy deliberately left out, one could celebrate strength where 'fate itself is the protagonist'. 'You may let your hero kick or struggle, but he is in the claws all the time.' " Lady Gregory wrote five traged­ies, The Gaol Gate, Dervorgilla, Grania, McDonough's Wife and Kincora. Kincora gave her the most trouble in writing, perhaps because, as she herself thought ‘I kept too close to history’', and she had to ask Yeats and Synge for their help. It exists in two versions, the first of which appears in the Appendix of this volume. This volume also contains the Tragic-Comedies, The White Cock­ade, The Canavans, The Image (which with The Gaol Gate was her favourite) and The Deliverer, the only bitter play Lady Gregory ever wrote.