The Ginger Cat and other Lost Plays

by Lord Dunsany

The Ginger Cat and Other Lost Plays presents three of the rarest of Dunsany's plays, two of them never before published. The Ginger Cat is a brilliant comedy, about a seemingly foolish man who takes only laughter seriously. The Murderers is a crime melodrama with a surprising twist. Mr. Faithful is another comedy, the uproarious adventures of a young man willing to literally live a dog's life in order to marry the woman he loves.

Genres: Plays

136 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, eighteenth baron of Dunsany, was an Anglo-Irish writer and dramatist, notable for his work in fantasy published under the name Lord Dunsany. More than eighty books of his work were published, and his oeuvre includes hundreds of short stories, as well as successful plays, novels and essays. Born to one of the oldest titles in the Irish peerage, he lived much of his life at perhaps Ireland's longest-inhabited home, Dunsany Castle near Tara, received an honourary doctorate from Trinity College, and died in Dublin.

Reviews

[Mohammed Abdikhader Firdhiye · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Ginger Cat and Mr Faithful is two of the three plays in this collection and they are reason enough to have tried Lord Dunsany modern comedic plays.

They are really funny 90 years later, great satire, sharp, witty kind of humour that introduction writer to the book says for a good reason is a precursor to the best kind of smart "Britcom". Blackadder,Monty Python kind of smart brit humor. I specially enjoyed the satire,making fools out political figures, modern(his times 1920s) values, dramatic romantic love.

[Kerry · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Ginger Cat and other lost plays by Lord Dunsany was published in 2005, edited by Darrell Schweitzer. Schweitzer also edited The Ghosts of the Heaviside Layer, which contains two other lost plays by Lord Dunsany. The Ginger Cat and other lost plays contains three plays, the title play itself, written just before the outbreak of World War I, according to Schweitzer, "The Murderers" written in 1919, and "Mr. Faithful" written in 1922. I have seen copies of "Mr. Faithful," but it's scarce and expensive. The other two plays were genuinely lost, as far as I can tell.

"The Ginger Cat" and "Mr. Faithful" are longer three-act plays, both romantic comedies. In both of them, the suitor of the daughter of a wealthy businessman must prove himself capable of getting work and earning money. "Mr. Faithful" is unusual because the hero employs himself as a dog. This play is not like Dunsany's novels in which he explores the mind of a dog, My Talks with Dean Spanley and Rory and Bran—instead, the human protagonist does the best he can to behave like a dog, without actually becoming a dog. The third play in the collection is a one-act mystery, "The Murderers."

In none of these three plays is there a hint of fantasy. Many of Dunsany's dramatic works, especially the earlier ones, are fantasies. However, fans of Dunsany's fantasy writing will be disappointed if they come to The Ginger Cat and other lost plays hoping to catch echoes of his fantasy short stories.

"Mr. Faithful" is interesting for its social commentary relevant to the time it was written. The officer returning from serving for five years throughout the Great War is only able to find employment as a rich man's dog.

I suppose these three plays were written well enough, though the dramatic form does not lend itself to Dunsany's style of beautiful prose poetry. Perhaps Schweitzer is right that the three plays haven't aged badly and would still attract audiences now, were they to be produced. I'm not so sure. Dunsany wrote better plays, in my opinion.

[Helen Fleischer · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title play was quite disappointing, given that the cat was the object of a pot shot with an air gun by the upper class twit protagonist. Fortunately he missed but that's not enough to erase the black mark on his character, one among many. He's cast in the mold of Bertie Wooster but using far inferior stuff. The second play was a short barroom drama with a very nasty twist. What saves the book is the third play, Mr. Faithful, which very nearly rises to the level of a Wodehouse farce, definitely good fun.