This revised and expanded Norton Critical Edition reprints the complete texts of fourteen plays by the major Irish playwrights: W. B. Yeats, Lady Gregory, J. M. Synge, Bernard Shaw, Sean O'Casey, Samuel Beckett, Brian Friel, Conor McPherson, and Marina Carr. The texts are accompanied by John Harrington's introduction to the volume and by his detailed explanatory annotations.

Backgrounds and Criticism is chronologically organized by playwright and includes prefaces, letters, journal entries, program notes, and interpretative essays for each play in the volume. In order to provide additional context for readers, these materials are preceded by five essays on the early-twentieth-century The Irish Dramatic Revival and followed by four essays on the current state of Theater in Ireland.

A Chronology and a Selected Bibliography are included.