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Major Barbara

First published: 1907
Pages: 163

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3 h 14 min · 3 parts

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Act 1
47:04
Act 2
73:06
Act 3
74:31

Major Barbara (1907) is a public domain work.

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About this book

Barbara Undershaft is a devoted Salvation Army officer who finds real meaning in feeding and saving London's poor, until her estranged father, a fabulously wealthy manufacturer of cannons and explosives, walks back into her life. When his donation rescues her struggling shelter, Barbara is forced to confront an uncomfortable question: does it matter whether the money that does good was earned by doing harm? Her father counters that poverty, not sin, is the true evil, and that his well-paid workers live better than any convert she has rescued. Shaw turns this collision of faith, capital, and social reform into a bracing argument with no easy winner. First staged in 1905, it remains one of his sharpest plays. This free PDF and EPUB edition includes his preface.

About the author

George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) was an Irish playwright, critic, and socialist polemicist who became the leading English-language dramatist of his era. A co-founder of the Fabian Society, he used comedy to attack social hypocrisy and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1925.