Man and Superman

by George Bernard Shaw

ISBN: 9780140437881

Published: 2001-01-01

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...