Exclusive to Penguin Classics: the definitive text of the first great
twentieth-century English play and a classic exposé of the eternal
struggle between the sexes--part of the official Bernard Shaw
Library
**
A Penguin Classic**
After the death of her father, Ann Whitefield becomes the joint ward of
two men: the respectable Roebuck Ramsden and John Tanner, author of "The
Revolutionist's Handbook." Believing marriage would prevent him from
achieving his higher intellectual and political ambitions, Tanner is
horrified to discover that Ann intends to marry him, and he flees to
Spain with the determined young woman in hot pursuit. The chase even
leads them to the underworld, where the characters' alter egos discuss
questions of human nature and philosophy in a lively debate in a scene
often performed separately as "Don Juan in Hell." In Man and Superman,
Shaw combined seriousness with comedy to create a satirical and buoyant
exposé of the eternal struggle between the sexes.
This is the definitive text produced under the editorial supervision of
Dan H. Laurence. The volume also includes Shaw's preface of 1903 and his
appendix, "The Revolutionist's Handbook"; the cast list from the first
production of Man and Superman; and a list of his principal works.