18 books like An Ideal Husband
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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A Woman of No Importance
Oscar Wilde's audacious drama of social scandal centres around the revelation of Mrs Arbuthnot's long-concealed secret. A house party is in full swing at Lady Hunstanton's country home, when it is announced that Gerald Arbuthnot has been appointed secretary to the sophisticated, witty Lord Illingworth. Gerald's mother stands in the way of his appointment, but fears to tell him why, for who will…
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A House of Pomegranates
**A House of Pomegranates** is a collection of fairy tales, written by Oscar Wilde, that was published in 1891 as a second collection for The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1888). Wilde once said that this collection was "intended neither for the British child nor the British public."
Original collection contains:
- The Young King
- The Birthday of the Infanta
- The Fisherman and his…
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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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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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Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo
"Yes! I'm not mistaken at all! It's the same woman!" whispered the tall, good-looking young enman in a well-cut navy suit as he stood with his friend, a man some ten years older than himself, at one of the roulette tables at Monte Carlo, the first on the right on entering the room - that one known to habitual gamblers as "The Suicide's Table."
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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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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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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 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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Love's Labour's Lost
King Ferdinand and his three friends, Biron, Longaville, and Dumain, plan to study philosophy for the next three years. During their academic pursuits, they must vow to sleep only three hours a night and not let any woman within a mile of court. These strict rules will prevent any distractions from their work—but their promises are soon put to the test when a princess and her three companions…
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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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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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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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Measure for Measure
This play examines the nature of mercy and justice, proposing that a good government is one that is flexible and based on common sense.
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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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