Plays Pleasant

THE BERNARD SHAW LIBRARY
PLAYS PLEASANT

BERNARD SHAW was born in Dublin in 1856. Although essentially shy, he created the persona of G. B. S., the showman, satirist, controversialist, critic, pundit, wit, intellectual buffoon and dramatist. Commentators brought a new adjective into English: Shavian, a term used to embody all his brilliant qualities.

After his arrival in London in 1876 he became an active Socialist and a brilliant platform speaker. He wrote on many social aspects of the day: on Common Sense about the War (1914), How to Settle the Irish Question (1917) and The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism (1928). He undertook his own education at the British Museum and consequently became keenly interested in cultural subjects. Thus his prolific output included music, art and theatre reviews, which were collected into several volumes, such as Music in London 1890–1894 (3 vols., 1931), Pen Portraits and Reviews (1931); and Our Theatres in the Nineties (3 vols., 1931). He also wrote five novels, including Cashel Byron’s Profession (published in Penguin), and a collection of shorter works issued as The Black Girl in Search of God and Some Lesser Tales (also in Penguin).

He conducted a strong attack on the London Theatre and was closely associated with the intellectual revival of British theatre. His many plays fall into several categories: ‘Plays Pleasant’; ‘Plays Unpleasant’; ‘Plays for Puritans’; political plays; chronicle plays; a ‘metabiological Pentateuch’ (Back to Methuselah) in five plays; and extravaganzas, romances and fables. He died in 1950.

W. J. McCORMACK was formerly Professor of Literary History at Goldsmiths College, University of London. He is the author of three Anglo-Irish biographies – Sheriden Le Fanu and Victorian Ireland (Clevedon Press, 1980), Fool of the Family; A Life of J. M. Synge (Weidenfeld, 2000), and Blood Kindred; Yeats, the Life, the Death, the Politics (Pimlico, 2005).

BERNARD SHAW

Plays Pleasant

Arms and the Man
Candida
The Man of Destiny
You Never Can Tell

Definitive text under the editorial supervision of
DAN H. LAURENCE
With an introduction by W. J. McCORMACK

BookishMall.com

BookishMall.com

Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia
Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2
Penguin Books India (P) Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India
Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd, Cnr Rosedale and Airborne Roads, Albany, Auckland, New Zealand
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank 2196, South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

www.penguin.com

Plays Pleasant first published 1898
Published in Penguin Books 1946
Reprinted with a chronology and a new introduction,
and with minor revisions, in Penguin Classics 2003
7

Preface: Copyright 1930, George Bernard Shaw. Copyright 1957, The Public Trustee as Executor
of the Estate of George Bernard Shaw.
Armes and the Man: Copyright 1898, 1913, 1926, 1931, 1933, 1941, George Bernard Shaw. Copyright 1905,
Brentano’s. Copyright 1958, The Public Trustee as Executor of The Estate
of George Bernard Shaw.
Candida: Copyright 1898, 1913, 1926, 1931, 1933, 1941, George Bernard Shaw. Copyright 1905, Brentano’s.
Copyright 1958, The Public Trustee as Executor of the Estate of George Bernard Shaw.
The Man of Destiny: Copyright 1898, 1913, 1926, 1931, 1933, 1941, George Bernard Shaw. Copyright 1905,
Brentano’s. Copyright 1958, the Public Trustee as Executor of The Estate of George Bernard Shaw.
You Never Can Tell: Copyright 1898, 1913, 1926, 1931, 1933, 1941, George Bernard Shaw. Copyright 1905,
Brentano’s. Copyright 1958, The Public Trustee as Executor of The Estate of George Bernard Shaw.
Introduction copyright © W. J. Mc Cormack 2003

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
All business connected with Bernard Shaw’s plays is in the hands of The Society of Authors, 84 Drayton Gardens, London sw10 9sb (Telephone: 020 7373 6642) to which all inquiries and applications for licences should be addressed and fees paid.