Androcles and the Lion, Overruled and Pygmalion

Androcles and the Lion, Overruled and Pygmalion is a collection of three plays by the renowned Irish playwright, George Bernard Shaw. The first play, Androcles and the Lion, is a satirical retelling of the classic fable in which a Christian slave, Androcles, befriends a lion who later saves his life. Shaw's version is a commentary on the absurdity of religious persecution and the power of compassion. The second play, Overruled, is a comedic exploration of the complexities of marriage and infidelity. Two couples on a train journey find themselves in a love quadrangle, each partner having an affair with the other's spouse. The play challenges traditional ideas of monogamy and suggests that love and relationships are not always straightforward. The final play in the collection, Pygmalion, is perhaps Shaw's most famous work. It tells the story of a Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, who is transformed into a lady by a linguistics professor, Henry Higgins. The play explores themes of social class, gender roles, and the power of language. It has been adapted into numerous films and musicals, including the popular musical My Fair Lady. Overall, Androcles and the Lion, Overruled and Pygmalion showcase Shaw's wit, intelligence, and progressive views on society and human relationships. The plays continue to be studied and performed around the world, cementing Shaw's legacy as one of the greatest playwrights of the 20th century.1914. Many of Shaw's early plays were either banned by the censor or refused production. He began the practice of writing the challenging, mocking, eloquent prefaces to his plays, which were sometimes longer than the play itself. In 1925 he won the Nobel prize. This volume contains three of Shaw's plays including: Androcles and the Lion in which he exercised a kind of retrospective history and from modern movements drew deductions for the Christian era; Pygmalion (made famous under the name My Fair Lady), a witty study of phonetics as well as a clever treatment of middle-class morality and class distinction, proved some of Shaw's greatest successes on the stage. It is a combination of the dramatic, the comic, and the social corrective that gives Shaw's comedies their special flavor; and Overruled. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.#This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.