George Bernard Shaw: 225 books

The Philanderer is an 1898 play by G. Bernard Shaw. It is one of the three plays Shaw published as Plays Unpleasant in 1898, because its purpose is not to entertain its audience - as the traditional Victorian theatre was supposed to - but instead to raise awareness of social problems and serve as a criticism...

While some of Shaw’s earlier plays are still performed, his later plays, such as the ones in this volume, are barely known. As the collective title indicates, the themes here are political; yet, frankly, it is doubtful how seriously we can now take Shaw as a political thinker. Despite writing in...

‘A tearing, flaring, revivalist drama’ was how Desmond MacCarthy described The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet. Set in America’s Wild West and aptly subtitled ‘A Sermon in Crude Melodrama’, this single-act play concerns the conversion of a horse thief desperate to ‘keep the devil’ in him...

The Doctor's Dilemma is a play by G. Bernard Shaw first staged in 1906. The thesis of the play, revolutionary for its time, was that medical doctors inevitably face a dilemma between the need to care for their patients and the need to practice often unnecessary operations on them in order to earn...

*This Book is annotated (it contains a detailed biography of the author). *An active Table of Contents has been added by the publisher for a better customer experience. *This book has been checked and corrected for spelling errors. Captain Brassbound's Conversion (1900) is a play by G. Bernard...

Collectors Edition! Highly Recommended! This is an excellent play on many levels. The story, similar in a few respects to Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities, is, among other things, about a man's willingness to give up his life for another. However, where Dickens's story ends with the decision,...

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...

e-artnow presents to you this unique collection of the greatest books ever written, perfect for the long summer days, the time for rejuvenation and brain revival! American: Huckleberry Finn Tom Sawyer The Call of the Wild White Fang Moby-Dick The Scarlet Letter Little Women My Antonia The Age of Innocence...

Invest your time in reading the true masterpieces of world literature, the greatest works of the greatest masters of their craft, the revolutionary works, the timeless classics and the eternally grand storylines every person should experience in their lifetime: British: Hamlet Romeo and Juliet Macbeth...

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.