The First and the Last: A Drama in Three Scenes

By John Galsworthy

'The First and the Last' is a play by the British writer John Galsworthy. It was based on a short story he previously published. The story centers on a man named Larry Durrant, who is a disappointment to his family. Henry Wallen, the long-missing and disreputable foreign husband of Larry's lover, Wanda, shows up on her doorstep. He has been gone for three years and tries to extort money from the lovers, and pulls a knife on Larry when he refuses to pay. In the ensuing fight the couple accidentally kill him when he strikes his head on the fire fender.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Good Press
• Release date: Apr 25, 2021
• ISBN: 4057664596970

John Galsworthy

John Galsworthy was a Nobel-Prize (1932) winning English dramatist, novelist, and poet born to an upper-middle class family in Surrey, England. He attended Harrow and trained as a barrister at New College, Oxford. Although called to the bar in 1890, rather than practise law, Galsworthy travelled extensively and began to write. It was as a playwright Galsworthy had his first success. His plays—like his most famous work, the series of novels comprising The Forsyte Saga—dealt primarily with class and the social issues of the day, and he was especially harsh on the class from which he himself came.

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John Galsworthy

The First and the Last

A Drama in Three Scenes

Published by Good Press, 2021

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EAN 4057664596970

Table of Contents

GALSWORTHY'S PLAYS

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A Drama In Three Scenes

By John Galsworthy

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III.

TWO MONTHS LATER

GALSWORTHY'S PLAYS

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GALSWORTHY'S PLAYS

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THE FIRST AND THE LAST

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A Drama In Three Scenes

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From Six Short Plays Of Galsworthy

By John Galsworthy

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PERSONS OF THE PLAY KEITH DARRANT, K.C. LARRY DARRANT, His Brother. WANDA. SCENE I. KEITH'S Study. SCENE II. WANDA's Room. SCENE III. The Same. Between SCENE I. and SCENE II.—Thirty hours. Between SCENE II. and SCENE III.—Two months.

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SCENE I

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It is six o'clock of a November evening, in KEITH DARRANT'S study. A large, dark-curtained room where the light from a single reading-lamp falling on Turkey carpet, on books beside a large armchair, on the deep blue-and-gold coffee service, makes a sort of oasis before a log fire. In red Turkish slippers and an old brown velvet coat, KEITH DARRANT sits asleep. He has a dark, clean-cut, clean-shaven face, dark grizzling hair, dark twisting eyebrows.

[The curtained door away out in the dim part of the room behind him is opened so softly that he does not wake. LARRY DARRANT enters and stands half lost in the curtain over the door. A thin figure, with a worn, high cheek-boned face, deep-sunk blue eyes and wavy hair