Mrs. Warren's Profession - Softcover

Shaw, Bernard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0887342280 ISBN 13: 9780887342288

Publisher: Players Pr, 1991

Synopsis

George Bernard Shaw was born in Dublin in 1856. Before becoming a playwright he wrote music and literary criticism. Shaw used his writing to attack social problems such as education, marriage, religion, government, health care, and class privilege. Shaw was particularly conscious of the exploitation of the working class. Mrs. Warren's Profession is a story about a young woman making decisions about her future. She learns about her mother's life and now must decide about her own way of life. Mrs. Warren's Profession," depicts the inequalities between the sexes.

About this title

Review

'Banned for over 30 years, this cautionary tale ruthlessly dissects Victorian family relationships in all its uncompromising forms voyeuristically witnessing breathtaking snobbery, arrogance, attitudes to lower classes and an unsavoury disposition to money and status... In a world where perception, morality, money and status form the basis of how society frames itself Mrs Warren's Profession is a caustic, revelatory tale of dysfunction.' --Jackie Cobham, Daily Telegraph

'The real pleasure of Shaw's play...is just how modern it can feel, whether it is pricking the balloon of morality or hypocrisy' --Lyn Gardner, Guardian

From the Back Cover

One of Bernard Shaw's early plays of social protest, Mrs Warren's Profession places the protagonist's decision to become a prostitute in the context of the appalling conditions for working class women in Victorian England. Faced with ill health, poverty, and marital servitude on the one hand, and opportunities for financial independence, dignity, and self-worth on the other, Kitty Warren follows her sister into a successful career in prostitution. Shaw's fierce social criticism in this play is driven not by conventional morality, but by anger at the hypocrisy that allows society to condemn prostitution while condoning the discrimination against women that makes prostitution inevitable.

This Broadview edition includes a comprehensive historical and critical introduction; extracts from Shaw's prefaces to the play; Shaw's expurgations of the text; early reviews of the play in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain; and contemporary contextual documents on prostitution, incest, censorship, women's education, and the "New Woman."

Edition details

• Publisher: Players Pr
• Publication date: 1991
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0887342280
• ISBN 13: 9780887342288
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback