Buy new:
-41% $9.49
FREE delivery Monday, May 20 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35
Ships from: Amazon
Sold by: The BAP Goods
$9.49 with 41 percent savings
List Price: $16.00

The List Price is the suggested retail price of a new product as provided by a manufacturer, supplier, or seller. Except for books, Amazon will display a List Price if the product was purchased by customers on Amazon or offered by other retailers at or above the List Price in at least the past 90 days. List prices may not necessarily reflect the product's prevailing market price.
Learn more
Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns
FREE delivery Monday, May 20 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35. Order within 1 hr 49 mins
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
$$9.49 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$9.49
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Ships from
Amazon
Ships from
Amazon
Sold by
The BAP Goods
Sold by
The BAP Goods
Returns
30-day easy returns
30-day easy returns
This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt.
Read full return policy
Returns
30-day easy returns
This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt.
Read full return policy
Payment
Secure transaction
Your transaction is secure
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
Payment
Secure transaction
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
$5.86
Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns
FREE delivery Monday, May 20 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35. Order within 1 hr 49 mins
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
$$9.49 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$9.49
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

Harold Pinter
+ Follow
More books from this author
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

The Birthday Party & The Room Paperback – January 20, 1994

by Harold Pinter (Author)
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 37 ratings
See all formats and editions
{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"$9.49","priceAmount":9.49,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"9","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"49","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"wuijosCR%2FhjfTYFRUP%2Fh8u0uiCwdMZYEw1%2F8W8p%2B4J%2Bb5K%2Fi%2FNVd5uayrvoBjLyS6vyt5s0UzCHJb5N3ITqUWhDXwO%2FnLL5C%2BZHRZyewz8OdS%2BaUI0lcS%2FD941PrgLLR%2FEYBN0S9eFZEbrhC74yp5Z6YsgpSKYkUM2WVUKI57eSjoNur4v6gbE0EAR9vPqOo","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}, {"displayPrice":"$5.86","priceAmount":5.86,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"5","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"86","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"wuijosCR%2FhjfTYFRUP%2Fh8u0uiCwdMZYEiAt%2BLrbOljl7BaHoeS44Br4VpQiRrBK6IuVfF6k33DSbd8YKukNDAnaQDNcJ%2BSKpGSOXa1pprAHfGoYa4vym%2FBSDBuDpR%2BWtZPHxdEr4LCx9dkIMpuunGzmThvLmld1ICTZ1Ta0sNxit4KlYrf7%2FFsvlTK04aV2Y","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"USED","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":1}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

In The Birthday Party, a musician escapes to a dilapidated boarding house, where he falls victim to the shadowy, ritualized violence of two men who have followed him from his sinister past. In The Room, a derelict boarding house again becomes the scene of a visitation from the past when a blind man suddenly arrives to deliver a mysterious message. Both plays are invested with the elements that make Pinter’s work unique: the disturbing familiarity of the dialogue, the subtle characterization, and the abrupt mood and power shifts among the characters, which can be by turns terrifying, moving, and wildly funny.

Read more Read less
Previous page
  1. Print length
    120 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Grove Press
  4. Publication date
    January 20, 1994
  5. Dimensions
    5.5 x 0.5 x 8.25 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0802151140
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0802151148
  8. See all details
Next page
The Amazon Book Review
The Amazon Book Review
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.

Frequently bought together

The Birthday Party & The Room
$9.49
Get it as soon as Monday, May 20
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
Sold by The BAP Goods and ships from Amazon Fulfillment.
+
The Homecoming
$10.65
Get it as soon as Tuesday, May 21
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
Sold by Shakespeare Book House and ships from Amazon Fulfillment.
+
Waiting for Godot: A Tragicomedy in Two Acts (Beckett, Samuel)
$11.59
Get it as soon as Sunday, May 19
In Stock
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Total price:
To see our price, add these items to your cart.
Details
Added to Cart
Some of these items ship sooner than the others.
Show details Hide details
Choose items to buy together.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Grove Press; Revised edition (January 20, 1994)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 120 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0802151140
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0802151148
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 5.5 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.5 x 8.25 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 37 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Harold Pinter

Harold Pinter

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
37 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

MACLEAR
5.0 out of 5 stars One of Pinter's finest.
Reviewed in the United States on July 2, 2013
Verified Purchase
I have seen "The Birthday Party" three times in three different productions and love the writing so much i had to have it. Pinter is one of those few playwrights who reward re-reading as well as re-viewing. The characters leap off the page. Like many of this master's plays it is a magnificent blend of the comic and the somber. For those who have not been able to catch the play on the stage or screen, if you enjoy modern drama you will most certainly enjoy this play. As for "The Room" is an apprentice piece - not at all bad, but Pinter had not fully come into his own at the time he wrote it. If you enjoy "The Birthday Party" be certain to also purchase his masterpiece "The Homecoming". Happy reading.
Helpful
 Report
Vintagefan3
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on August 8, 2015
Verified Purchase
very great and fast shipping A++++ Thank you so much!!
Helpful
 Report
Charles S. Houser
4.0 out of 5 stars “What are you but a corpse waiting to be washed?” (p. 45)
Reviewed in the United States on August 20, 2018
Verified Purchase
Not the cheeriest of plays, but probably an accurate depiction of post-WWII (first performed in 1958) despair and numbness. None of the characters (a late middle aged couple who run a below-standard boarding house, Meg and Petey Boles; their sole boarder, Stanley Webber; a friendly and pretty local girl, Lulu; and a pair of ominous visitors whose motives are explored but never fully explained, Mssrs. McCann and Goldberg) is very likable. But one can’t help but feel some sympathy for Stanley who may or may not be a down-on-his-luck musician who descends into some sort of madness at the provocation of the two unexplained intruders. I suspect Pinter was influenced by Beckett’s Waiting for Godot (1952 French; 1954 English) with its blend of vaudeville and sadomasochistic elements. And subsequently, The Birthday Party’s influence on Edward Albee (Who’ Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) and Mart Crowley (The Boys in the Band) seems equally likely. The Room, the one-act play included in this volume, has a lot in common with the longer play and is equally deserving of a read.
Helpful
 Report
John F. Rooney
5.0 out of 5 stars Pinter's First Play, Absurdity Rules!
Reviewed in the United States on July 4, 2009
"The Room" (1957) was Harold Pinter's first play, a one act piece, and it demonstrates some of the Absurdist features we grew to know so well: the seemingly aimless conversation, the sense of menace, dread, and terror, real violence or lurking violence, the Pinterian pauses, the feeling that we are in alien territory dealing with characters who don't seem to be in control of their destinies.
Of course none of us is in control of his or her destiny, but in this play Rose doesn't know if the room is still hers, who her landlord is, and who are the strange people who enter the room and seem to be attempting to control her life. Is Mr. Kidd the landlord? If he is, he doesn't know how many floors the house has. Rose asks him questions; he evades answering them or doesn't comprehend.
The stranger Riley calls her Sal, and says she is wanted at home. She's puzzled; we're puzzled, and that's part of what Pinter is saying--we live in an existential world in which we operate and wait for we know not what.
Pinter took his cue from Samuel Beckett and brought his audience into new territory where the norms of behavior were altered, into a world of questions without answers. But Pinter the artist was able to create an alternative world in which his plots intrigue us, his dialogue has its own beauty and majesty, and his characters fascinate us.
Pinter changed the audience's expectations, shook them out of their usual theater-going habits and made them think. He made them anxious, antsy with his skittish people in his edgy plays. Rose says, "Who did bring me into the world?" Why, Pinter did, of course.
Rose Hudd talks endlessly in the beginning, and her husband Bert says nothing. It's cold and damp, and he has to take the van out. When he comes back he talks briefly about his trip and savagely confronts a stranger, and Rose ends up transformed.
Pinter often used the enclosure of a single room: human beings were caged in, caught in a claustrophobic situation. The play seems slow-moving yet a great deal happens. Great portent is conveyed quite quickly. He's a shock and awe artist.
There's always the possibility Pinter is toying with us, seeing what he can get away with, seeing if his quirky stuff will go over, conning us.
I have reviewed "The Birthday Party" elsewhere on Amazon.
3 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Avid reader
1.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing and hard to understand
Reviewed in the United States on August 5, 2017
Verified Purchase
I hated both plays and could not imagine sitting through either at a theatre or how PInter became so esteemed. The plays seemed nonsensical to me and thus utterly boring. Had they not been so short, I never would have finished reading. Quite disappointing as another book I read kept referring to "The Birthday Party" as something special. Possibly the plays have some deep sociological meaning but they are not, to me, remotely entertaining.
One person found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Evan
2.0 out of 5 stars Two Stars
Reviewed in the United States on April 1, 2016
Verified Purchase
ehh. Not terrible
Helpful
 Report