Bernard Shaw: 263 books

Shaw believed that theatre audiences of the 1890s deserved more than the hollow spectacle and sham he saw displayed on the London stage. But he also recognized that people wanted to be entertained while educated, and to see purpose mixed with pleasure. In these three plays of ideas, Shaw employed...

In this 1891 essay, Shaw champions the works of Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, praising his social realism and his characters’ struggles against a hypocritical society. Shaw then pushes farther, dividing humankind into three categories—of which, he declares, “Out of a thousand persons, there are 700 Philistines, 299 idealists, and only one lone realist.”

First staged in 1906, "The Doctor's Dilemma" is a play that revolves around a community of doctors, most specializing, unbeknownst to them, in different types of expensive, fraudulent treatments. Dr. Ridgeon, who has actually discovered a vaccine for tuberculosis, is conflicted about administering his...

One of Shaw's finest and most devilish comedies, Man and Superman portrays Don Juan as the quarry instead of the huntsman. John Tanner, upon discovering that his beautiful ward plans to marry him, flees to the Sierra Nevada mountain range, where he is captured by a group of rebels. Tanner falls asleep,...

In many of his plays, Shaw writes a preface for the reader which, in some cases, has very little to do with the play itself, but, in some cases, as with Major Barbara, it comments directly on the ideas found in the play. And as with this play, the prefaces are often rather lengthy and are divided into sections.

With Saint Joan, Shaw reached the height of his fame as a dramatist. Fascinated by the story of Joan of Arc (canonized in 1920), but unhappy with "the whitewash which disfigures her beyond recognition," he presents a realistic Joan: proud, intolerant, naïve, foolhardy, always brave - a rebel who challenged the conventions and values of her day.

*** Original and Unabridged Content. Made available by CLASSIC COLLECTION 600.*** Synopsis: 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. You can find the complete list of CLASSIC COLLECTION 600 at the end of this ebook. FIND AND ENJOY!

Collectors edition! Highly Recommended! I can't resist any chance I can get to peek into the mind of a genius, and Shaw was a true genius. This story was delightful and brilliant. This was great. Instead of a love affair, we get a high-stakes game of chess with Cleopatra making calculated moves to...

The Irrational Knot was first published in 1905, having been written in 1880. Within a framework of leisure class preoccupations and frivolities Shaw disdains hereditary status and proclaims the nobility of workers. Marriage, as the knot in question, is exemplified by the union of Marian Lind, a lady...

A retelling of the consequences following the meeting of Androcles, the slave, and a wounded lion. To prick a thorn out of a lion's foot one will surely gain new friends and old enemies. The story of Androcles, a Christian who is about to be sent to the lions for being a heretic in the Roman Empire....

After a young cockney secretary named Miss Begonia Brown is confronted by a number of men and women who have good reason to complain of the way they have been treated by their governments, she suggests that they take their grievances to the Court of International Justice at The Hague. After the British...

If you could choose to save the life of either a brilliant but unbalanced artist or a stable, kindly medical student, what would you do? That's the dilemma at the heart of Shaw's play The Doctor's Dilemma. This fascinating work delves into a Pandora's Box of ethical and moral questions about the value of human life and the decision-making process itself.

As a Fabian and lifelong socialist, Shaw believed that economic inequality was a poison destroying every aspect of our lives. Family affections and relations between the sexes were perverted by it. From Parliament to eduction our institutions were "corrupted at the root by pecuniary interest". Idealism,...

After poleaxing his mathematics master with a perfect right, Cashel Byron, the unloved son of a successful actress, runs away to Australia. He returns to England and becomes the most famous prizefighter of his age, only to be floored himself by the lovely and impossible Lydia Carew. Can Lydia,...