One of Bernard Shaw's most glittering comedies, Arms and the Man is a burlesque of Victorian attitudes to heroism, war and empire. In the contrast between Bluntschli, the mercenary soldier, and the brave leader, Sergius, the true nature of valour is revealed. Shaw mocks deluded idealism in Candida, when a young poet becomes infatuated with the wife of a Socialist preacher. The Man of Destiny is a witty war of words between Napoleon and a 'strange lady', while in the exuberant farce You Never Can Tell a divided family is reunited by chance. Although Shaw intended Plays Pleasant to be gentler...
One of Bernard Shaw's most glittering comedies, Arms and the Man is a burlesque of Victorian attitudes to heroism, war and empire. In the contrast bet...
Shaw's brilliantly witty exposure of the British class system Shaw wrote the part of Eliza Doolittle--'an east-end dona with an apron and three orange and red ostrich feathers'--for Mrs Patrick Campbell, with whom he had a passionate but unconsummated affair. From the outset the play was a sensational success, although Shaw, irritated by its popularity at the expense of his artistic intentions, dismissed it as a potboiler. The Pygmalion of legend falls in love with his perfect female statue and persuades Venus to bring her to life so that he can marry her. But Shaw radically...
Shaw's brilliantly witty exposure of the British class system Shaw wrote the part of Eliza Doolittle--'an east-end dona with an apron and t...
Caesar and Cleopatra satirizes Shakespeare's use of history and comments wryly on the politics of Shaw's own time, but the undertone of melancholy makes it one of his most affecting plays.
Caesar and Cleopatra satirizes Shakespeare's use of history and comments wryly on the politics of Shaw's own time, but the undertone of melanch...
Candida centers on a romantic triangle and parodies courtly love and the domestic drama of Ibsen. It abounds with classical allusions, the fervor of a religious revival, and poetic inspiration and aspirations.
Candida centers on a romantic triangle and parodies courtly love and the domestic drama of Ibsen. It abounds with classical allusions, the ferv...
When a thing is funny, search it for a hidden truth, Bernard Shaw wrote. Through a long and brilliant career as a playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist, among other roles, his ability to reveal life's truth through humour estabished him as one of the most quoted writers in the English language.
When a thing is funny, search it for a hidden truth, Bernard Shaw wrote. Through a long and brilliant career as a playwright, critic, polemicist and p...
George Bernard Shaw Bernard Shaw Richard F. Dietrich
This reissue makes available one of the early works of George Bernard Shaw: a galloping, witty novel with a wealth of pertinent things to say about the creaking class system and men's and women's attempts to find a human and interesting way to live together. The book was written in 1883 and later revised by Shaw for inclusion in the 1932 Standard Edition, from which the present text is taken.
This reissue makes available one of the early works of George Bernard Shaw: a galloping, witty novel with a wealth of pertinent things to say about th...
In his introduction Dan H. Laurence notes that 'theatrics' connotes not only activities of a theatrical character but behaviour that manifests itself as theatricality. All the correspondence selected for this volume - most of it hitherto unpublished - relates to Bernard Shaw's theatre dealings and theatrical interest, at the same time attesting to the 'histrionic instinct' and 'theatrified imagination' (his own phrases) of the man who penned them.
More than one hundred letters are represented, starting from mid-1889, when Shaw had not yet completed his first play and was known...
In his introduction Dan H. Laurence notes that 'theatrics' connotes not only activities of a theatrical character but behaviour that manifests itse...
Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells are among the best-known and most controversial literary figures of the twentieth century. Both were rebelliously critical of the social and political, familial and sexual conventions and structures of their time. They shared broadly similar interests, but their lifestyles differed sharply - as did their views on many subjects, including those discussed in their correspondence: religion, socialism, science, war and world history, the theatre, the profession of authorship, and more. The letters are always forthright, often abusive and quarrelsome, sometimes...
Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells are among the best-known and most controversial literary figures of the twentieth century. Both were rebelliously criti...
After movie-makers in England bungled film versions of Bernard Shaw's How He Lied to Her Husband and Arms and the Man, producers and directors in Germany and Holland botched those based on Pygmalion, and a Hollywood screenplay desecrated The Devil's Disciple, Shaw took a chance on Gabriel Pascal and gave him permission to produce a movie version of Pygmalion in England. The contract was signed on 13 December 1935 and Pascal, a charming, flamboyant Hungarian emigre with relatively little experience in cinema, did the playwright proud. Shaw's gamble paid off in this Pygmalion, which, to this...
After movie-makers in England bungled film versions of Bernard Shaw's How He Lied to Her Husband and Arms and the Man, producers and directors in G...
