Exclusive to Penguin Classics: the definitive text of the play that jumpstarted Shaw’s career as a dramatist—part of the official Bernard Shaw Library
A Penguin Classic
The Reverend Morell, a socialist preacher, brings a penniless young poet, Eugene Marchbanks, into his home, which is dominated by his fascinating wife, Candida. With its single stage setting and small cast of six characters, Shaw’s play is deceptively simple. Centered on a romantic triangle and parodying courtly love and the domestic drama of Ibsen, Candida also abounds with classical allusions, the fervor of a religious revival, and poetic inspiration and aspirations.
This is the definitive text prepared under the editorial supervision of Dan H. Laurence. The volume includes Shaw’s preface of 1898.
By the Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature
“Candida probably deserves to be called Shaw’s masterpiece.” —Peter Gahan, from the Introduction
“[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
Exclusive to Penguin Classics: the definitive text of the play that jumpstarted Shaw’s career as a dramatist—part of the official Bernard Shaw Library
A Penguin Classic
The Reverend Morell, a socialist preacher, brings a penniless young poet, Eugene Marchbanks, into his home, which is dominated by his fascinating wife, Candida. With its single stage setting and small cast of six characters, Shaw’s play is deceptively simple. Centered on a romantic triangle and parodying courtly love and the domestic drama of Ibsen, Candida also abounds with classical allusions, the fervor of a religious revival, and poetic inspiration and aspirations.
This is the definitive text prepared under the editorial supervision of Dan H. Laurence. The volume includes Shaw’s preface of 1898.
Praise
By the Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature
“Candida probably deserves to be called Shaw’s masterpiece.” —Peter Gahan, from the Introduction
“[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
