J.B. Priestley (1894-1984) established his reputation as a leading playwright in the 1930s. Three of his plays from that decade –
Dangerous Corner(1932),
Time and the Conways(1937), and
I Have Been Here Before(1937) – he designated as “time plays”. Each of them reflects Priestley’s fascination with the unorthodox theories of time that emerged in the inter-war period, and each explores this mystical theme in the realist style.
Priestley described himself as “a Time-haunted man” and believed that time was “the particular riddle that the Sphinx has set for this age of ours” (Priestley, Man and Time, p. 12; Priestley, Midnight on the Desert, p. 245). His enduring preoccupation with this riddle can be explained in terms of broad intellectual and cultural developments, and
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Citation: Grosvenor, Peter Christopher. "The Time Plays". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 14 November 2013 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=35066, accessed 24 November 2024.]
