Plays Pleasant (Penguin Classics)

Plays Pleasant (1898) comprises four comedies intended to amuse audiences but also to provoke them. Arms and the Man, set in the Balkan mountains, satirizes the romantic view of war and military heroism. Candida presents the complicated relationship between a vicar, his wife, and her young admirer. You Never Can Tell is a light, witty look at an aging suffragette and her family. The Man of Destiny features Napoleon Bonaparte at odds with English mores.