18 books like An Ideal Husband
Rime of the ancient mariner
A mariner stops a man on his way to a wedding. The mariner then relates to the man all the events of a long sea voyage, arousing in his listener feeling of impatience, fear, fascination and bemusement.The Rime of the Ancient Mariner was published in the collection Lyrical Ballads (1798), which contributed significantly to the advent of modern poetry and the beginnings of British Romance…
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Candida
The Reverend James Mavor Morell, a respectable socialist clergyman, spends his days giving lectures and sermons while his wife, Candida, sees to his comfortable London home. That home is disrupted by the arrival of the poet Eugene Marchbanks, who is in love with Candida and determined to rescue her from what he sees as an unromantic life. Shaw wrote Candida as a reaction to Henrik Ibsen’s social…
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The Rivals
A comedy of manners revolving around false identities, romantic entanglements, and parental disapproval satirizes the pretentiousness and sentimentality of 18th-century society.
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Arms and the Man
Arms and the Man was George Bernard Shaw's first commercially successful play. It is a comedy about idealized love versus true love. A young Serbian woman idealizes her war-hero fiance and thinks the Swiss soldier who begs her to hide him a terrible coward. After the war she reverses her opinions, though the tangle of relationships must be resolved before her ex-soldier can conclude the last of…
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Henry V
Written by William Shakespeare around 1599, The Life of Henry the Fifth, more commonly known as Henry V, chronicles the later history of King Henry the Fifth of England and his efforts during Hundred Years’ War to reclaim disputed territories in France. The play starts with Henry’s claims to be the rightful heir to the French throne and, after his invasion of France, culminates with his famous…
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The Admirable Crichton
The story of the play concerns an aristocratic English family who revert to the state of Nature when shipwrecked on a desert island. While there, they are willing slaves to their former butler, but on return to civilization, the positions are shifted.
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Measure for Measure
In the Duke's absence, a cruel regent condemns a noble to death under an old law against fornication. When his sister pleads for his life, the regent basely bargains for her virginity, but the Duke restores justice.
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Back to Methuselah
Five linked plays that expound Shaw's philosophy of creative evolution in an extended dramatic parable that progresses through time from the Garden of Edesn to AD 31,920. Cf Encyclopaedia Britannica.
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Henry IV, Part 1
Presents the original text of Shakespeare's play side by side with a modern version, discusses the author and the theater of his time, and provides quizzes and other study activities.
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Love for Love
Valentine, Sir Sampson's dissolute eldest son, finds himself at a standstill; the only way out of his financial difficulties is to give in to his father's pressure to renounce his right of inheritance. While this suggestion immediately increases the chances of his bluff younger brother Ben on the marriage mart, Valentine's own chances with his beloved Angelica would proportionally decrease. To…
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Major Barbara
This is a play with the theme of societal salvation and salvation of the human soul brought out in characters representing the rich versus the poor.
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The school for scandal, 1780
The School for Scandal debuted at Drury Lane Theater in London in 1777. The play is still popular and regularly performed today. It is a comedy of manners about "the deceptive nature of appearances, the fickleness of reputation, [and] the often disreputable guises behind which goodness and honesty can conceal itself."
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What every woman knows
National Theatre, direction: A.L. Erlanger & W.H. Rapley, business management: S.E. Cochran. S.E. Cochran offers the National Theatre Players in "What Every Woman Knows," by Sir James M. Barrie, staged by Addision Pitt, scenery by Charles Squires. Stage manager Frank Peck, production built by Charles Sturbitts, properties Geo. Donaldson, electrician, Walter Burke.
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The Tragedy of Jane Shore
This tragedy in five acts was originally performed in the early eighteenth century. The play focuses on one of King Henry IV’s most notorious mistresses, Jane Shore.
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The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus
Marlowe's play has two different recognized texts, with most editions based on the B text. Due to recent arguments for the authenticity of A, this edition is based on the A text. It includes a discussion of biographical, dramatic and theatrical aspects of the play.
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The Two Noble Kinsmen
When Theseus, Duke of Athens, learns that the ruler of Thebes has killed three noble kings he swears to take revenge. But after Athens triumphs over the rival city, Theseus is struck by the bravery of two Theban cousins and orders his surgeons to attend to them. Soon, the cousins' lifelong friendship is threatened, as both become overwhelmed with love for the duke's beautiful sister.
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Othello. Interpretationshilfe.
In Othello, Shakespeare creates a powerful drama of a marriage that begins with fascination (between the exotic Moor Othello and the Venetian lady Desdemona), with elopement, and with intense mutual devotion and that ends precipitately with jealous rage and violent deaths. He sets this story in the romantic world of the Mediterranean, moving the action from Venice to the island of Cyprus and…
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King Henry VIII
"This is the first fully annotated and comprehensive modern-spelling edition of King Henry VIII - known in its early performances as All is True - for over ten years. It makes full use of current scholarship on the dating, authorship, printing, and sources of the play, as well as critical interpretations, and includes an up-to-date survey of the play in performance.
It is the first edition to…
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