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The Man of Destiny

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First published: 1898
Pages: 65

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About this book

Shaw called this one-act piece a trifle, but it crackles with the wit that made his name. The action unfolds at a small inn near Tavazzano in 1796, just after the young General Bonaparte has won the Battle of Lodi. A strange lady has tricked a gullible lieutenant out of a packet of dispatches, one of which could embarrass Napoleon badly, and she now matches minds with the general himself in a long, teasing duel of nerve and cunning. Shaw uses the encounter less for history than for talk, letting Napoleon deliver a famously barbed reading of English character and self-deception. It is a slight, sparkling comedy of ideas.

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.