The Playboy of the Western World
By J. M. Synge
Cover: A Nip Against the Cold (1869), oil on canvas by Erskine Nicol (1825-1904) · Wikimedia Commons · Public domain (artist died 1904)
In a Mayo public house a frightened stranger, Christy Mahon, announces that he has killed his father, and the villagers, led by the publican's daughter Pegeen Mike, are enchanted. When his father turns up alive, the heroic story and the village's admiration meet a harsher test.
Summary written with Claude Sonnet 5.5.