Man and Superman

John Tanner is a wealthy revolutionary talker who suddenly finds himself guardian to Ann Whitefield, a charming and quietly relentless young woman determined to marry him whether he likes it or not. Beneath the domestic comedy of her pursuit, Shaw develops his theory of the Life Force, the evolutionary drive he believed pushes humanity toward something greater through the will of women. The famous third act, often performed on its own as Don Juan in Hell, drops the plot entirely for a dream debate in the underworld among Don Juan, the Devil, and their companions. Witty, argumentative, and unusually long, it is Shaw at his most philosophically ambitious. Published in 1903, it stands among his major works. This free PDF and EPUB edition includes the full text.