Plays Pleasant (Penguin Classics)
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Product Description
Product Description
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.
About the Author
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.
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Night : A lady's bedchamber in Bulgaria, in a small town near the Dragoman Pass, late in November in the year 1885. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Night : A lady's bedchamber in Bulgaria, in a small town near the Dragoman Pass, late in November in the year 1885. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Shaw is always worth reading. The dialogue is clever and thought provoking. When he died we lost a critic who could stand aside and give us an unbiased opinion of whatever was in the news. Eric Hutchinson
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
1 review
0 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Predictable comedies
7 April 2009
Format:Paperback
I don't find George Bernard Shaw as entertaining as I'm supposed to. I have no doubt that his work was very forward-thinking and funny at the time, and I know that he is an important playwright. I'm also sure that in the hands of the right director any of these plays would be fantastic. However, I felt like all of the stories in this collection contained the same gimmicks. You could tell where the play was going in the first couple scenes. I guess my favorite of them all was Candida. It had the most unexpected plotline, and I felt like it wasn't trying to be anything.
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