Kraus, Karl

New York. 1974. Frederick Ungar Publishing Company. 1st American Edition of this Abridged Translation. Very Good in Wrappers. 0804463662. Translated from the German by Alexander Gode and Sue Ellen Wright. Abridged and edited by Frederick Ungar. Introduction by the editor. Critical analysis by Franz H. Mautner. 263 pages. paperback. Cover design by Tim Gaydos. keywords: Drama Literature Austria Translated. FROM THE PUBLISHER - THE LAST DAYS OF MANKIND is Kraus's masterpiece, with half of Europe as its stage. It is presented here in English for the first time, in an abridged version that preserves the essence of the 800-page original. Its influence on Brecht, Ionesco, and other playwrights is acknowledged. Mingling actual quotations, news reports, and government orders with Kraus's own satiric dialogue, this immense drama (never meaning to be performed) offers a vast fresco of events at the front and at home during, as it prophesied, the last days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Indeed, Kraus anticipated the development of atomic warfare and its threat to all mankind. Some of Kraus is untranslatable, but, as Stanley Kauffmann wrote in his New Republic review, ‘Ungar has done us a benefit at least by bringing us a bit closer to this sharp-eyed, angry, prickly, lover-hater of mankind.' inventory #10453 ISBN: 0804463662.