Synopses & Reviews
Plays Pleasant (1898) comprises four comedies intended to amuse audiences but also to provoke them.
Arms and the Man, set in the Balkan mountains, satirizes the romantic view of war and military heroism.
Candida presents the complicated relationship between a vicar, his wife, and her young admirer.
You Never Can Tell is a light, witty look at an aging suffragette and her family.
The Man of Destiny features Napoleon Bonaparte at odds with English mores.
Synopsis
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.
Synopsis
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 LibraryOne 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.
About the Author
Goerge Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) was one of the most prolific writers of the modern theater. He invented the modern comedy of ideas, expounding on social and political problems with a razor-sharp tongue. He won the 1925 Nobel Prize for literature. Dan H. Laurence is series editor for the works of Shaw in Penguin. W. J. McCormack is professor of literary history at Goldsmith's College, London.
Table of Contents
Plays Pleasant Introduction
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