Heartbreak House

by George Bernard Shaw, Dan H. Laurence (Editor), David Hare (Introduction)

Overview

Set during a house party at the eccentric household of Captain Shotover and his daughter Hesione, this comedy of manners takes a probing look at the conflict between old-fashioned idealism and the realities of the modern age. Heartbreak House was Shaw's favorite play.

Author Bio: George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) was one of the most prolific writers of the modern theater. He invented the modern comedy of ideas, expounding on social and political problems with a razor-sharp tongue, yet never sacrificing the comic vitality that ensures regular revivals of his plays. He also wrote several important political works, including The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism.

Dan H. Lawrence, edited Shaw's Collected Letters, his Collected Plays with their Prefaces, and Shaw's Music and (with Daniel Leary) The Complete Prefaces. He is Series Editor for the works of Shaw in Penguin.

David Hare is a playwright and director. His plays include Plenty, The Secret Rapture, and Via Dolorosa.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780140437874
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	01/01/2001
Series:	Bernard Shaw Library Series
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.78(h) x 0.42(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

In the course of his long and prolific career, George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) wrote 60 plays, in addition to music and literary criticism. An avid socialist, he regarded his writing as a vehicle for promoting his political and humanitarian views.

Editorial Reviews

By 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, questioning and provoking us even when he is making us laugh. And he is still at it. No cliché or truism of contemporary life is safe from him.” —Michael Holroyd
 
“In his works Shaw left us his mind. . . . Today we have no Shavian wizard to awaken us with clarity and paradox, and the loss to our national intelligence is immense.” —The Sunday Times
 
“He was a Tolstoy with jokes, a modern Dr. Johnson, a universal genius who on his own modest reckoning put even Shakespeare in the shade.” —The Independent
 
“His plays were superb exercises in high-level argument on every issue under the sun, from feminism and God, to war and eternity, but they were also hits—and still are.” —The Daily Mail

From the Publisher