Plays Pleasant [Paperback]

Exclusive to Penguin Classics: the definitive text of Shaw’s volume of “pleasant” plays,Arms and the Man,Candida,The Man of Destiny, andYou Never Can Tell—part of the official Bernard Shaw Library

A Penguin Classic

One of Bernard Shaw’s most glittering comedies,Arms and the Manis 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 inCandida, when a young poet becomes infatuated with the wife of a Socialist preacher.The Man of Destinyis a witty war of words between Napoleon and a “strange lady,” while in the exuberant farceYou Never Can Tella divided family is reunited by chance. Although Shaw intendedPlays Pleasantto 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.Plays PleasantIntroduction
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 ShawBy the Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature

“[Shaw] did his best in redressing the fateful unbalance between truth and reality, in lifting mankind to a higher rung of social maturity. He often pointed a scornful finger at human frailty, but his jests were never at the expense of humanity.” —Thomas Mann
 
“Shaw will not allow complacency; he hates second-hand opinions; he attacks fashion; he continually challenges and unsettles, queslX