Arms and the Man (New Mermaids)

by Bernard Shaw (Author), J.P.Wearing (Editor)

• New

  Paperback
  2008

  $13.68

  What use are cartridges in battle? I always carry chocolate instead. Cheered by some and booed by others on opening night in 1894, Arms and the Man became the first success of Bernard Shaw's dramatic career that spanned six decades and brought him world-wide renown. In this perennially popular anti-romantic comedy, a fugitive enemy soldier bursts into the bedroom of a starry-eyed young woman; he then proceeds to disabuse her and those around her of the bogus romanticised ideals they have constructed around love, war, and social status. This edition includes Shaw's definitive text and provides the most comprehensive scholarly treatment of the play to date. It radically re-examines Shaw's sources, the drafts of the play, its themes and self-fictionalising techniques, and locates it in the theatrical milieu that Shaw sought to subvert and revolutionize.

• Used

  Paperback
  1991

  $3.29

  A soldier on the run climbs into Raina's bedroom. She shelters him, but then discovers that, unlike the heroic officer to whom she is engaged, he despises war and carries not ammunition, but chocolate. When the 'chocolate cream soldier' reappears after the war, the consequences for Raina and her family are unexpected and amusing.