Annajanska The Bolshevik Empress And Augustus Does His Bit

'These highbrows must remember that there is a demand for little things as well as for big things' George Bernard Shaw was one of the leading playwrights and public intellectuals of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He helped propel drama towards the unexpected, into a realm where it might shock audiences into new viewpoints and into fresh understandings of society. Throughout his long writing career Shaw wrote short plays, ranging in length from 1000-word puppet play, Shakes Versus Shav, to the 12,000-word suffragette comedy, Press Cuttings. These plays can be taken to illuminate Shaw's life and legacy, from ideas about war and patriotism in O'Flaherty, V.C. to censorship in The Shewing up of Blanco Posset. Surveying Shaw's entire career of writing short dramas, focusing especially on those years when his work in the form was particularly prolific (around 1909 and during the First World War), this collection places Shaw's short plays broadly into four key areas: farces, historical sketches, war dramas, and Shakespearean shorts. For each of these areas, the volume explores Shaw's aesthetic and thematic concerns, the precise historical and generic contexts in which the works were written, the major criticism and scholarship that has subsequently emerged, and the most notable stage and screen productions. This collection reveals how a playwright often criticized for being too wordy was actually a master of the short form.

This Collected Works contains: An Unsocial Socialist Androcles and the Lion Annajanska, the Bolshevik Empress Arms and the Man Augustus Does His Bit: A True-to-Life Farce Back to Methuselah: A Metabiological Pentateuch Caesar and Cleopatra Candida Candida: Ein Mysterium in drei Akten Captain Brassbound's Conversion Cashel Byron's Profession Fanny's First Play Getting Married Great Catherine (Whom Glory Still Adores) Heartbreak House How He Lied to Her Husband John Bull's Other Island Major Barbara Man and Superman: A Comedy and a Philosophy Maxims for Revolutionists Misalliance Mrs. Warren's Profession O'Flaherty V.C.: A Recruiting Pamphlet On the Prospects of Christianity / Bernard Shaw's Preface to Androcles and the Lion Overruled Preface to Major Barbara: First Aid to Critics Press Cuttings Pygmalion Revolutionist's Handbook and Pocket Companion The Admirable Bashville; Or, Constancy Unrewarded / Being the Novel of Cashel Byron's Profession Done into a Stage Play in Three Acts and in Blank Verse, with a Note on Modern Prize Fighting The Dark Lady of the Sonnets The Devil's Disciple The Doctor's Dilemma The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors The Impossibilities of Anarchism The Inca of Perusalem: An Almost Historical Comedietta The Irrational Knot / Being the Second Novel of His Nonage The Man of Destiny The Miraculous Revenge The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring The Philanderer The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet Treatise on Parents and Children You Never Can Tell George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 1880s to his death and beyond. He wrote more than sixty plays, including major works such as Man and Superman (1902) and Pygmalion (1912). With a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory, Shaw became the leading dramatist of his generation, and in 1925 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

From 1880 to 1956, when John Osborne transformed the British theater world with Look Back in Anger, British playwrights made numerous lasting contributions and provided a foundation for the innovations of dramatists during the latter half of the 20th century. This reference profiles the life and work of some 40 British playwrights active during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many of whom are also known for their work as novelists and poets. Included are figures such as W. H. Auden, Max Beerbohm, Noel Coward, T. S. Eliot, John Galsworthy, Graham Greene, D. H. Lawrence, W. Somerset Maugham, George Bernard Shaw, and Oscar Wilde. Each entry provides a biographical overview; a list of major plays and summaries of their critical reception; a list of minor plays, adaptations, and productions; an assessment of the playwright's career; and archival and bibliographical information. Included in this reference book are alphabetically arranged entries for some 40 British playwrights active from 1880 through 1956. Entries are written by expert contributors, with each entry providing a biographical overview; a list of major plays, premieres, and significant revivals, along with a summary of the critical reception of these works; a listing of additional plays, adaptations, and productions; an assessment of the playwright's career and contributions, with reference to published evaluations in magazines, journals, dissertations, and books; a listing of locations housing unpublished archival material, if available; a selected bibliography of the dramatist's published plays and of essays and articles by the playwright on aspects of the theater; a selected bibliography of secondary sources; and, when available, a listing of previously published bibliographies on the playwright.

Inspired by Howard Gruber’s Evolving Systems Approach, these studies explore creativity in several domains. The idea that the creative person embodies a system of loosely coupled sub-systems – knowledge, purpose, and affect that work together, is viewed here in different chapters that explore this concept. These include autobiographies of incarcerated youth, curricula for moral and civic responsibility, changing attitudes of readers to text (romance novels), as well as case studies of highly creative individuals, such as George Bernard Shaw. Gruber’s approach provides concepts as well as methodological tools which the authors apply to diverse creative processes. This book is a valuable resource for undergraduate as well as graduate level students interested in creativity, development, and education. In addition to the intrinsic interest of each chapter, the guiding theme of the book is the underlying theory of creativity, Gruber’s Evolving Systems Approach, and illustrates the unusual breadth and flexibility of that theory.

A.M. Gibbs provides an authoritative and comprehensive account of the life, career and associations of George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), one of the most eminent and influential literary figures of the modern age. Drawing on a wide range of published and unpublished material, this work illuminates the complex fabric of Shaw's extraordinary career as playwright, novelist, critic, orator, political activist, social commentator, avant-garde thinker and controversialist. Images of Shaw's daily private life, and of his tangled love affairs, flirtations and friendships, are intertwined with the records of his prodigiously productive career as public figure and creative writer, in a fully documented study which is both a scholarly resource and a lively biographical portrait. An introductory chapter explores theoretical issues in biography raised by the chronology form; and a chapter on Shaw's ancestry and family supplies new evidence about his Irish background. A Who's Who section contains thumbnail sketches of over two hundred contemporaries of Shaw who had significant associations with him.

This selection comprises: "THE ADMIRABLE BASHVILLE" "HOW HE LIED TO HER HUSBAND" "PASSION, POISON AND PETRIFACTION" "THE GLIMPSE OF REALITY" "THE DARK LADY OF THE SONNETS" "OVERRULED" "THE MUSIC-CURE" "GREAT CATHERINE" "THE INCA OF PERUSALEM" "O'FLAHERTY V.C." "AUGUSTUS DOES HIS BIT" "ANNAJANSKA, THE BOLSHEVIK EMPRESS" "VILLAGE WOOING" "THE SIX OF CALAIS" and "CYMBELINE REFINISHED".