Following last year's critically-acclaimed production of Albee's "The Lady of Dubuque", starring Dame Maggie Smith, Edward Albee is as popular as ever in theatre-land. Arguably America's greatest living playright, Albee is a recipient of three Tony Awards, and was awarded the Gold Medal in Drama from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1980. In 1996 he received both the Kennedy Center Honours and the National Medal of Arts. "The New York Times" has described him as 'one of the few genuinely great living American dramatists.'Volume 1 of this 3-volume collection contains the eight plays written by Albee during his first decade as a playwright, from 1958 through to 1965. These range from the four brilliant one-act plays with which he exploded on the New York theatre scene in 1958-59 ("The Zoo Story", "The Death of Bessie Smith", "The Sandbox", and "The American Dream") to his early masterpiece, "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" (1961-62). They also include two adaptations from notable American novels ("The Ballad of the Sad Cafe" and "Malcolm") and Albee's mysterious and fascinating "Tiny Alice". This volume includes a new introductory piece written by Mr Albee.