Aristophanes' Lysistrata (411 BC) is a comic and perhaps the first anti-war play.

Stephen Crane's Red Badge of Courage (1895) describes the experiences of a young soldier during the Civil War.

Jack London's The Call of the Wild (1903) considers whether people act the ways they do because of nature (genetics, hormones) or nurture (environment, family life, social experiences).

Considered by many critics the perfect one-act play, John Millington Synge's Riders to the Sea (1904) chronicles the story of a mother who has lost her husband and all her sons to the sea.