Excerpt from Sappho a Tragedy in Five Acts The first of Grillparzer's dramas that appeared upon the stage was Die Ahnfrau, produced in 1817. Sappho was first acted in 1818, and was followed at intervals of three years by six other plays, the last of which was given in 1838. After that time, Grillparzer allowed no drama to be offered for representation, although he left three completed in manuscript. He was reserved and sensitive, and shrank ever more and more from all contact with the public. The success of a piece, he said, could no longer give him pleasure, while its failure might still cause him pain. Several of the dramas, including the Sappho, continue to form part of the repertory of the principal German theatres. The complete edition of Grillparzer's works, published in 1872, comprises - beside the dramas - poems, tales, aphorisms, an account of the Spanish theatre, and the fragment of an autobiography. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.