Exclusive to Penguin Classics: the definitive text of Shaw's volume of "pleasant" plays, Arms and the Man, Candida, The Man of Destiny, and You Never Can Tell-part of the official Bernard Shaw Library
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 comedies than those in their companion volume, Plays Unpleasant, their prophetic satire is sharp and provocative.
This is the definitive text prepared under the editorial supervision of Dan H. Laurence. The volume includes Shaw's Preface of 1898.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) is one of the world's greatest literary figures. Born in Dublin, Ireland, he left school at fourteen and in 1876 went to London, where he began his literary career with a series of unsuccessful novels. In 1884 he became a founder of the Fabian Society, the famous British socialist organization. After becoming a reviewer and drama critic, he published a study of the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen in 1891 and became determined to create plays as he felt Ibsen did: to shake audiences out of their moral complacency and to attack social problems. However, Shaw was an irrepressible wit, and his plays are as entertaining as they are socially provocative. Basically shy, Shaw created a public persona for himself: G.B.S., a bearded eccentric, crusading social critic, antivivisectionist, language reformer, strict vegetarian, and renowned public speaker. The author of fifty-three plays, hundreds of essays, reviews, and letters, and several books, Shaw is best known for Widowers' Houses, Mrs. Warren's Profession, Arms and the Man, Caesar and Cleopatra, Man and Superman, Major Barbara, Pygmalion, Heartbreak House, and Saint Joan. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1925.
Dan H. Laurence (series editor; 1920-2008) was series editor for the works of George Bernard Shaw in Penguin. Formerly a New York University faculty member, Mr. Laurence left his tenured position in 1970 to dedicated his life to the collection and curation of Shaw's life, work, and letters. He served as the official literary advisor to Shaw's estate and published four volumes of his correspondence.
W. J. McCormack (introducer) is a professor of literary history at Goldsmith's College, London.
Plays PleasantIntroduction
Chronology
Preface
Arms and the Man: An Anti-romantic Comedy
Candida: A Mystery
The Man of Destiny: A Fictitious Paragraph of History
You Never Can Tell: A Comedy
Composition and Cast Lists
Principal Works of Bernard Shaw
Exclusive to Penguin Classics: the definitive text of Shaw's volume of "pleasant" plays, Arms and the Man, Candida, The Man of Destiny, and You Never Can Tell-part of the official Bernard Shaw Library
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 comedies than those in their companion volume, Plays Unpleasant, their prophetic satire is sharp and provocative.
This is the definitive text prepared under the editorial supervision of Dan H. Laurence. The volume includes Shaw's Preface of 1898.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) is one of the world's greatest literary figures. Born in Dublin, Ireland, he left school at fourteen and in 1876 went to London, where he began his literary career with a series of unsuccessful novels. In 1884 he became a founder of the Fabian Society, the famous British socialist organization. After becoming a reviewer and drama critic, he published a study of the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen in 1891 and became determined to create plays as he felt Ibsen did: to shake audiences out of their moral complacency and to attack social problems. However, Shaw was an irrepressible wit, and his plays are as entertaining as they are socially provocative. Basically shy, Shaw created a public persona for himself: G.B.S., a bearded eccentric, crusading social critic, antivivisectionist, language reformer, strict vegetarian, and renowned public speaker. The author of fifty-three plays, hundreds of essays, reviews, and letters, and several books, Shaw is best known for Widowers' Houses, Mrs. Warren's Profession, Arms and the Man, Caesar and Cleopatra, Man and Superman, Major Barbara, Pygmalion, Heartbreak House, and Saint Joan. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1925.
Dan H. Laurence (series editor; 1920-2008) was series editor for the works of George Bernard Shaw in Penguin. Formerly a New York University faculty member, Mr. Laurence left his tenured position in 1970 to dedicated his life to the collection and curation of Shaw's life, work, and letters. He served as the official literary advisor to Shaw's estate and published four volumes of his correspondence.
W. J. McCormack (introducer) is a professor of literary history at Goldsmith's College, London.
Plays PleasantIntroduction
Chronology
Preface
Arms and the Man: An Anti-romantic Comedy
Candida: A Mystery
The Man of Destiny: A Fictitious Paragraph of History
You Never Can Tell: A Comedy
Composition and Cast Lists
Principal Works of Bernard Shaw
Plays PleasantIntroduction
Chronology
Preface
Arms and the Man: An Anti-romantic Comedy
Candida: A Mystery
The Man of Destiny: A Fictitious Paragraph of History
You Never Can Tell: A Comedy
Composition and Cast Lists
Principal Works of Bernard Shaw
Dublin-born George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) was an active Socialist and a brilliant platform speaker. He was strongly critical of London theatre and closely associated with the intellectual revival of British drama. Dan H. Laurence (series editor) has edited Shaw's Collected Letters and Collected Plays with their Prefaces. He was Literary Advisor to the Shaw Estate until his retirement in 1990. Bill Mc Cormack is Professor of Literary History at Goldsmith's College, London.
By the Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature
“[Shaw] did his best in redressing the fateful unbalance between
truth and reality, in lifting mankind to a higher rung of social
maturity. He often pointed a scornful finger at human frailty, but
his jests were never at the expense of humanity.” —Thomas
Mann
“Shaw will not allow complacency; he hates second-hand opinions; he
attacks fashion; he continually challenges and unsettles,
questioning and provoking us even when he is making us laugh. And
he is still at it. No cliché or truism of contemporary life is safe
from him.” —Michael Holroyd
“In his works Shaw left us his mind. . . . Today we have no Shavian
wizard to awaken us with clarity and paradox, and the loss to our
national intelligence is immense.” —The Sunday Times
“He was a Tolstoy with jokes, a modern Dr. Johnson, a universal
genius who on his own modest reckoning put even Shakespeare in the
shade.” —The Independent
“His plays were superb exercises in high-level argument on every
issue under the sun, from feminism and God, to war and eternity,
but they were also hits—and still are.” —The Daily Mail
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