Collected Works

by Ian Dallas

In his Introduction Ian Dallas "My desire is to submit my work to those fellow travellers who seek for maps to make sense of their life's journey." And indeed, the Collected Works of Ian Dallas is an account of a journey. One man's journey, told from many angles, yet at the same time a vivid reflection of that journey of a whole society as it emerged out of the World War spanning from 1914 to 1945, and culminated in that situation which we see in the world today. The Works - The Collected Works consists of three plays and four prose pieces, each of the two parts being prefaced by an introduction. The works were written between 1952, when the author was a 22-year-old student at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, and the present day where we find him, perhaps more active and prolific as a writer than ever before, engaged in a series of world-wide social programmes enacting those conclusions to which his journey has taken him.

837 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

The modern writer submits his literary work to the critics. My desire is to submit my work to those fellow travellers who seek for maps to make sense of their life’s journey. Ronald Laing, the psychiatrist, once said to me, ‘The only reason I go on psycho-analysing my patients, is in the hope that just one of them in his narration will reveal to me something that will help to make sense of my own life.’

I look back on my works as being, as it were, way-marks on a journey, one which when taken had seemed not only without destination, but in itself nothing but a troubled and turbulent wandering. All I took with me through what seemed the disorder of my life was a satchel with two connected compartments. One was the formal education and culture as a child of my time. The other hidden pocket contained another version of events, both historical and familial, which gave glimmerings of significance that seemed to indicate that in all the dreadful business of living and the great wasted tracts of enjoyment, that there was meaning to be found and that illumination would one day emblazon both the road and the landscape.