On April 19th, 1947, Dürrenmatt’s first play, »It is Written«, premiered at the Schauspielhaus, Zurich. It was a calamity, and the audience whistled so loudly that the police had to intervene. Nevertheless, the author, 26 years of age at the time, went on to achieve world fame and attract an audience of millions as a dramatist. »Romulus The Great«, »The Visit«, »The Physicists« and many more remain among the most performed plays on the German stage to this day, as well as being (beloved!) school reading and »universally renowned, modern myths« (Le Monde, Paris). This edition features all plays with detailed references to performance and publication history, as well as a chronicle of Dürrenmatt’s life and work.

In The Judge and his Hangman (1950) Dürrenmatt's investigator takes to the stage for the first time: Inspector Bärlach, an old fossil of the judicial system. For health reasons, he has only very little time left to solve a murder case. Bärlach's approach to the issues of justice, morality, guilt and punishment is a common thread running through all of Dürrenmatt's crime novels. In Suspicion (1951), for example, the inspector fights once more against death and injustice, driven by his boundless defiance at »existing in this world and fighting for another one, a better one«. In The Pledge (1958) another investigator, Matthäi, doggedly tries to hunt down a child-murderer, showing no fear of danger or its consequences. Justice (1985) focuses on a young lawyer's entanglement in the delicate web of justice, the judicial system and morality. Dürrenmatt began his fifth (and uncompleted) crime novel The Pensioner (1995) as early as 1969, but kept re-writing it. The novel's protagonist, the ill, gluttonous Inspector Höchstettler, is the spitting image of Bärlach.