Red cloth with gilt title. Woman’s head on grey front board.

• F.B.A. provides an in-depth photographic presentation of this item to stimulate your feeling and touch. More traditional book descriptions are immediately available.

         A rare Folio copy

Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936) was a Spanish poet, playwright, and theatre director who was executed by Nationalist forces at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. This collection contains the following plays; Yerma, Blood Wedding, and the House of Bernarda Alba.

Yerma is a play by the Spanish dramatist Federico García Lorca. It was written in 1934 and first performed that same year. García Lorca describes the play as “a tragic poem.” The play tells the story of a childless woman living in rural Spain. Her desperate desire for motherhood becomes an obsession that eventually drives her to commit a horrific crime.

Blood Wedding (Spanish: Bodas de sangre) is a tragedy by Spanish dramatist Federico García Lorca. It was written in 1932 and first performed at Teatro Beatriz in Madrid in March 1933, then later that year in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Theatre critics often group Blood Wedding with Garcia Lorca’s Yerma and The House of Bernarda Alba as the “rural trilogy”. Garcia Lorca’s planned “trilogy of the Spanish earth” remained unfinished at the time of his death, as he did not include The House of Bernarda Alba in this group of works.

The House of Bernarda Alba (Spanish: La casa de Bernarda Alba) is a play by the Spanish dramatist Federico García Lorca. Commentators have often grouped it with Blood Wedding and Yerma as a “rural trilogy”. Garcia Lorca did not include it in his plan for a “trilogy of the Spanish land” (which remained unfinished at the time of his murder).

Garcia Lorca described the play in its subtitle as a drama of women in the villages of Spain. The House of Bernarda Alba was Garcia Lorca’s last play, completed on 19 June 1936, two months before Garcia Lorca’s death during the Spanish Civil War. The play was first performed on 8 March 1945 at the Avenida Theatre in Buenos Aires. The play centers on the events of a house in Andalusia during a period of mourning, in which Bernarda Alba (aged 60) wields total control over her five daughters Angustias (39 years old), Magdalena (30), Amelia (27), Martirio (24), and Adela (20). The housekeeper (La Poncia) and Bernarda’s elderly mother (María Josefa) also live there.

The deliberate exclusion of any male character from the action helps build up the high level of sexual tension that is present throughout the play. Pepe “el Romano”, the love interest of Bernarda’s daughters and suitor of Angustias, never appears on stage. The play explores themes of repression, passion, and conformity, and inspects the effects of men upon women.

Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca (5 June 1898 – 19 August 1936), known as Federico García Lorca  was a Spanish poet, playwright, and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of ’27, a group consisting mostly of poets who introduced the tenets of European movements (such as symbolism, futurism, and surrealism) into Spanish literature.

He initially rose to fame with Romancero gitano (Gypsy Ballads, 1928), a book of poems depicting life in his native Andalusia. His poetry incorporated traditional Andalusian motifs and avant-garde styles. After a sojourn in New York City from 1929 to 1930—documented posthumously in Poeta en Nueva York (Poet in New York, 1942)—he returned to Spain and wrote his best-known plays, Blood Wedding (1932), Yerma (1934), and The House of Bernarda Alba (1936).

García Lorca was gay and suffered from depression after the end of his relationship with sculptor Emilio Aladrén Perojo. García Lorca had a close emotional relationship for a time with Salvador Dalí, who said he rejected García Lorca’s sexual advances.

García Lorca was assassinated by Nationalist forces at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. His remains have never been found, and the motive remains in dispute; some theorize he was targeted for being gay, a socialist, or both, while others view a personal dispute as the more likely cause.