Pygmalion was written by George Bernard Shaw and first published in 1913. It is the story of Henry Higgins, a professor of phonetics who makes a bet with his friend Colonel Pickering that he can successfully pass off a Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, as a refined society lady by teaching her how to speak with an upper class accent and training her in etiquette. In the process, Higgins and Eliza grow close, but she ultimately rejects his domineering ways and declares she will marry Fr...

Heartbreak House is not merely the name of the play which follows this preface. It is cultured, leisured Europe before the war. When the play was begun not a shot had been fired; and only the professional diplomatists and the very few amateurs whose hobby is foreign policy even knew that the guns were loaded. A Russian playwright, Tchekov, had produced four fascinating dramatic studies of Heartbreak House, of which three, The Cherry Orchard, Uncle Vanya, and The Seagull, had been performed...

George Bernard Shaw created pioneering dramas that probed prevailing social problems with a vein of comedy that made their stark themes more palatable, while striving to make the world aware of the exploitation of the working classes. For the first time in digital publishing, this comprehensive eBook presents the complete fictional works of George Bernard Shaw, with every play, novel and short story, as well as featuring numerous illustrations, many rare texts, informative introductions an...

George Bernard Shaw based his 1913 play "Pygmalion" on the Greek legend of the sculptor, Pygmalion. According to the classic tale, Pygmalion despised women but fell in love with his own sculpture of the goddess Aphrodite. He appeals to Aphrodite to give his statue life. She answers his prayer, and Pygmalion marries his creation.Shaw’s play takes place in Victorian London, where Henry Higgins, a phonetician, accepts a bet that simply by changing the speech of a Cockney flower seller...

PYGMALION is a play by George Bernard Shaw, named after a Greek mythological character. It was first presented on stage to the public in 1913. Professor of phonetics Henry Higgins makes a bet that he can train a bedraggled Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, to pass for a duchess at an ambassador's garden party by teaching her to assume a veneer of gentility, the most important element of which, he believes, is impeccable speech. The play is a sharp lampoon of the rigid British class sys...

Saint Joan is a 1923 play written by Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw depicting the life of Joan of Arc and first published in 1923.

Bernard Shaw's The Admirable Bashville is a brisk, witty three-act adaptation of Cashel Byron's Profession, written in sparkling blank verse and driven by theatrical irony, romance, and social satire. At its center stands Bashville, a loyal footman whose comic dignity and wounded pride make him far more than a servant, while Shaw's playful preface turns the play into a sharp argument about copyright, artistic ownership, and the absurdities of theatrical law. The story opens in a secluded g...

In a War Office bristling with panic, General Mitchener is startled by a suffragette disturbance outside—only to find that the supposed militant at his door is Prime Minister Balsquith in disguise. Balsquith has slipped through hostile crowds to warn him that the government is in crisis after its own failed strategy against the women's movement, and the opening instantly sets a savage satirical tone, mocking official fear, military bluster, and political authority under strain. What follow...

In The Revolutionist's Handbook, George Bernard Shaw launches a biting assault on complacent politics, moral cant, and the comforting myths of progress. Speaking through John Tanner, he argues that real social change depends not on institutions, slogans, or sentimental reform, but on deliberate human intention—and on the creation of a better kind of person. The chapter "On Good Breeding" makes this case with provocative wit, insisting that the future belongs to conscious selection, not abs...

The Bucket List Collection: Masterpieces You Should Read Before You Die invites readers to embark on an unparalleled literary journey, showcasing an eclectic array of seminal works that span continents and centuries. This anthology deftly weaves through diverse literary styles and genres, from the philosophical musings of Plato and Confucius to the imaginative tales of Jules Verne and Lewis Carroll. The collection unifies lyrical poetry, epic sagas, critical essays, and poignant narratives...

Arms and the Man was George Bernard Shaw's first commercially successful play. It is a comedy about idealized love versus true love. A young Serbian woman idealizes her war-hero fiance and thinks the Swiss soldier who begs her to hide him a terrible coward. After the war she reverses her opinions, though the tangle of relationships must be resolved before her ex-soldier can conclude the last of everyone's problems with Swiss exactitude.The play premiered to an enthusiastic receptio...

After the Battle of Lodi, General Napoleon is sitting in an inn and eating his dinner when a Lieutenant arrives to tell him that some of his dispatches have been stolen. Napoleon determines that a strange lady also staying in the inn has them in her possession, and thus begins a battle of wits for the papers-and over Napoleon's philosophy.This brisk, witty one-act comedy pits a young Napoleon's cunning against a mysterious woman's nerve, turning a battle for stolen letters into a d...