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"Heartbreak House" is George Bernard Shaw's 1919 drama that is the story of Mazzini Dunn and his employer, Alfred Mangan, who is about to marry Mazzini's daughter. In these two characters Shaw draws a sharp contrast between the realist Mangan and the idealist Dunn, a contrast that Shaw uses to express the idea that a cultured and leisured Europe was in his opinion drifting towards destruction. A critical commentary of the European upper class is at the heart of this tragic dramatic work.

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George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) is revered as one of the great British dramatists, credited not only with memorable works, but the revival of the then-suffering English theatre. Shaw was born in Dublin, Ireland, left mostly to his own devices after his mother ran off to London to pursue a musical career. He educated himself for the most part, and eventually worked for a real estate agent. This experience founded in him a concern for social injustices, seeing poverty and general unfairness afoot, and would go on to address this in many of his works. In 1876, Shaw joined his mother in London where he would finally attain literary success. «Back the Methuselah» is regarded as Science Fiction, and a sort of commentary on human destiny. It consists of a preface (An Infidel Half Century) and a series of five plays: «In the Beginning: B.C. 4004 (In the Garden of Eden)», «The Gospel of the Brothers Barnabas: Present Day», «The Thing Happens: A.D. 2170», «Tragedy of an Elderly Gentleman: A.D. 3000», and «As Far as Thought Can Reach: A.D. 31,920.»

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Originally published in George Bernard Shaw's 1901 collection «Three Plays for Puritans» and first performed in 1900, «Captain Brassbound's Conversion» is the drama of its title character, a sort of refined latter-day pirate who resides in Morocco. When two jaded English tourists, Sir Howard Hallam, a judge of the criminal bench, and Lady Cicely Waynflete, his sister-in-law, arrive at the Moroccan coast and endeavor to explore the interior, Captain Brassbound takes up the charge as their guide. However as they reach an ancient Moorish castle we discover that the confidence these two have placed in Captain Brassbound is misguided and a secret plot of revenge unfolds. While not Shaw's best known work, «Captain Brassbound's Conversion» is a fantastic work of comedic drama in which Shaw exhibits his skill at developing rich and interesting characters.

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George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) is revered as one of the great British dramatists, credited not only with memorable works, but the revival of the then-suffering English theatre. Shaw was born in Dublin, Ireland, left mostly to his own devices after his mother ran off to London to pursue a musical career. He educated himself for the most part, and eventually worked for a real estate agent. This experience founded in him a concern for social injustices, seeing poverty and general unfairness afoot, and would go on to address this in many of his works. In 1876, Shaw joined his mother in London where he would finally attain literary success. First performed in 1892, «Widower's Houses» was the first of Shaw's plays to see the stage. This play was included in a collection of plays called «Plays Unpleasant», named so because Shaw's intention in writing them was not to entertain, but to raise awareness in certain areas of social concern. The source of social concern here in this play is the income derived from slum housing and the play focuses on the rift it forms between the two main characters, Henry Trench who has a moral problem with the way the father of his wife earns his money and his wife, Blanch who has no problem taking money from her father.

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First performed in 1913, “Pygmalion” is George Bernard’s Shaw’s play regarding two scholars of phonetics, Professor Henry Higgins and Colonel Pickering, trying to test their theories on an unsuspecting flower girl. When Higgins boasts he could pass anyone off as a lord or lady simply by teaching them to speak right, Pickering wagers that he can’t and offers to pay for the speech lessons of Eliza Doolittle, a poor flower girl. Eliza accepts the offer for speech lessons because she wants to lose her Cockney accent so she can get a job in a flower shop. A satire of the superficiality of distinctions between social classes, “Pygmalion” is one of Shaw’s most famous comedies, the subject of numerous stage productions. Forever immortalized by the multiple Academy award-winning motion picture “My Fair Lady”, this play is sure to endure as a dramatic classic for years to come. This edition includes the illustrations by May Wilson Preston which appeared in the first serialized American edition.

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George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) is revered as one of the great British dramatists, credited not only with memorable works, but the revival of the then-suffering English theatre. Shaw was born in Dublin, Ireland, left mostly to his own devices after his mother ran off to London to pursue a musical career. He educated himself for the most part, and eventually worked for a real estate agent. This experience founded in him a concern for social injustices, seeing poverty and general unfairness afoot, and would go on to address this in many of his works. In 1876, Shaw joined his mother in London where he would finally attain literary success. Written the first decade of the twentieth century, «Misalliance» is a sort of continuation of another of Shaw's play, «Getting Married». Set over the course of an afternoon, this play furthers Shaw's opinion that divorce should be an easily attainable thing.

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"The Man of Destiny" is one of Shaw's shorter works, just a one act play, in which we see the mastery of character development that is so common to the playwright's works. The play is an investigation of a young twenty-seven year old general by the name of Napoleon Bonaparte who has yet to achieve the accomplishments for which make him such an important figure in world history. In the play we find him waiting impatiently at an inn on the road between Lodi and Milan for a packet of dispatches to arrive, in which he will discover the truth of a personal betrayal. With rich dialogue and dramatic style Shaw delivers within this short little work a satisfying character study and a portrait of the everyday life of a great man prior to his greatness.

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George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) is revered as one of the great British dramatists, credited not only with memorable works, but the revival of the then-suffering English theatre. Shaw was born in Dublin, Ireland, left mostly to his own devices after his mother ran off to London to pursue a musical career. He educated himself for the most part, and eventually worked for a real estate agent. This experience founded in him a concern for social injustices, seeing poverty and general unfairness afoot, and would go on to address this in many of his works. In 1876, Shaw joined his mother in London where he would finally attain literary success. «Getting Married», comes from a satirical standpoint, much like so many other of Shaw's works. The story follows a family getting together for a wedding, all the while building a case for the necessity of easy divorce proceedings.

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This comprehensive eBook presents the complete works or all the significant works – the Œuvre – of this famous and brilliant writer in one ebook – 8436 pages easy-to-read and easy-to-navigate: • Pygmalion • Mrs. Warren's Profession • Arms and the Man • Major Barbara • Man and Superman: A Comedy and a Philosophy • Caesar and Cleopatra • Heartbreak House • You Never Can Tell • On the Prospects of Christianity • Candida • Back to Methuselah: A Metabiological Pentateuch • Misalliance • The Doctor's Dilemma • How He Lied to Her Husband • The Devil's Disciple • Getting Married • The Dark Lady of the Sonnets • The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • Treatise on Parents and Children • The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • John Bull's Other Island • Androcles and the Lion • Maxims for Revolutionists • Fanny's First Play • The Philanderer • The Man of Destiny • An Unsocial Socialist • Augustus Does His Bit: A True-to-Life Farce • The Inca of Perusalem: An Almost Historical Comedietta • Preface to Major Barbara: First Aid to Critics • Overruled • Confessions of a CaricaturistOliver Herford • The Irrational Knot • Great Catherine (Whom Glory Still Adores) • Press Cuttings • The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet • Revolutionist's Handbook and Pocket Companion • Cashel Byron's Profession • Captain Brassbound's Conversion • Annajanska, the Bolshevik Empress • The Admirable Bashville; Or, Constancy Unrewarded • The Impossibilities of Anarchism • O'Flaherty V.C.: A Recruiting Pamphlet • The Miraculous Revenge •.etc.

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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 system of the day and a commentary on women's independence. In ancient Greek mythology, Pygmalion fell in love with one of his sculptures, which then came to life. The general idea of that myth was a popular subject for Victorian era English playwrights, including one of Shaw's influences, W. S. Gilbert, who wrote a successful play based on the story called Pygmalion and Galatea first presented in 1871. Shaw would also have been familiar with the burlesque version, Galatea, or Pygmalion Reversed. Shaw's play has been adapted numerous times, most notably as the musical My Fair Lady and the film of that name. (more o: www.wisehouse-classics.com)

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