One of Britain's best-known modern playwrights, Hampton wrote his first drama, When Did You Last See My Mother?, at the age of seventeen, and saw it produced by the Oxford Dramatic Union two years later.

There followed a succession of dramas that received ever-greater kudos and reached an ever increasing audience: Total Eclipse, The Philanthropist, Savages, Treats, Tales from Hollywood, The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H., and Les Liaisons Dangereuses the latter also adapted by Hampton into the acclaimed motion picture. Dangerous Liaisons, for which he won an Academy Award.

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From the very beginning of his career Hampton was also interested in translation or retranslating well known foreign plays into English. His first effort, a version of Isaac Babel's Marya, was produced in 1967, when the playwright was just twenty-one.

There followed such classics as: Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, Ibsen's Hedda Gabler and A Doll's House and The Wild Duck and Ghosts, Moliere's Don Juan (performed on television) and Tartuffe, and Horvath's Tales from the Vienna Woods and Don Juan Comes Back from the War. William J. Free covers all of Hampton's work, from his first college writings to his most recent television and film work. Includes notes, bibliography, general index, and character index.