Study Texts S.
4 total works
Exclusive to Penguin Classics: the definitive text of one of Shaw’s most forward-looking plays—part of the official Bernard Shaw Library
A Penguin Classic
Andrew Undershaft, a millionaire armaments dealer, loves money and despises poverty. His estranged daughter Barbara, on the other hand, shows her love for the poor by throwing her energies into her work as a major in the Salvation Army, and sees her father as another soul to be saved. But when the Army needs funds to keep going, it is Undershaft who saves the day with a large check—forcing Barbara to examine her moral assumptions. Are they right to accept money that has been obtained by “Death and Destruction”? Full of lively comedy and sparkling debate, Major Barbara brilliantly tests the tensions between religion, wealth and power, benevolence and equality, and metaphors and realities of war.
This is the definitive text under the editorial supervision of Dan H. Laurence. This volume includes Shaw’s preface of 1906, the cast list from the first production of Major Barbara, and a list of his principal works.
A Penguin Classic
Andrew Undershaft, a millionaire armaments dealer, loves money and despises poverty. His estranged daughter Barbara, on the other hand, shows her love for the poor by throwing her energies into her work as a major in the Salvation Army, and sees her father as another soul to be saved. But when the Army needs funds to keep going, it is Undershaft who saves the day with a large check—forcing Barbara to examine her moral assumptions. Are they right to accept money that has been obtained by “Death and Destruction”? Full of lively comedy and sparkling debate, Major Barbara brilliantly tests the tensions between religion, wealth and power, benevolence and equality, and metaphors and realities of war.
This is the definitive text under the editorial supervision of Dan H. Laurence. This volume includes Shaw’s preface of 1906, the cast list from the first production of Major Barbara, and a list of his principal works.
The ancient Greeks tell the legend of the sculptor Pygmalion, who created a statue of a woman of such surpassing beauty that he fell in love with his own creation. Then Aphrodite, taking pity on this man whose love could not reach beyond the barrier of stone, brought the statue to life and gave her to Pygmalion as his bride.
Centuries later George Bernard Shaw captured the magic of this legend in his celebrated romantic play, Pygmalion. Pygmalion became Henry Higgins, a professor of phonetics, his statue an untutored flower girl from the streets of London, and the barrier between them the difference in their stations in life.
In My Fair Lady, the legend is taken one step further: the barrier is swept away and Higgins and Eliza are reunited as the curtain falls on one of the loveliest musical plays of our time.
--back cover
Centuries later George Bernard Shaw captured the magic of this legend in his celebrated romantic play, Pygmalion. Pygmalion became Henry Higgins, a professor of phonetics, his statue an untutored flower girl from the streets of London, and the barrier between them the difference in their stations in life.
In My Fair Lady, the legend is taken one step further: the barrier is swept away and Higgins and Eliza are reunited as the curtain falls on one of the loveliest musical plays of our time.
--back cover
Exclusive to Penguin Classics: the definitive text of one of Shakespeare’s most affecting plays—part of the official Bernard Shaw Library
A Penguin Classic
In a cheeky nod to Shakespeare’s towering reputation, Shaw reinvents two of his historical characters but sets his own play in a period predating both Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra. Shaw’s Cleopatra is a kittenish girl with a streak of cruelty, while his Caesar is a world-weary philosopher-soldier who is as much a stranger in Rome as in the barbaric court of Egypt. With wit, irony, and an undertone of melancholy, Caesar and Cleopatra satirizes Shakespeare’s use of history and comments wryly on the politics of Shaw’s own time.
This is the definitive text prepared under the editorial supervision of Dan H. Laurence. The volume includes Shaw’s preface of 1900.
A Penguin Classic
In a cheeky nod to Shakespeare’s towering reputation, Shaw reinvents two of his historical characters but sets his own play in a period predating both Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra. Shaw’s Cleopatra is a kittenish girl with a streak of cruelty, while his Caesar is a world-weary philosopher-soldier who is as much a stranger in Rome as in the barbaric court of Egypt. With wit, irony, and an undertone of melancholy, Caesar and Cleopatra satirizes Shakespeare’s use of history and comments wryly on the politics of Shaw’s own time.
This is the definitive text prepared under the editorial supervision of Dan H. Laurence. The volume includes Shaw’s preface of 1900.
A retelling of the consequences following the meeting of Androcles, the slave, and a wounded lion.