"Major Barbara"

1907 Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950). “Major Barbara.” In his John Bull’s Other Island and Major Barbara: also How he Lied to Her Husband (London: Archibald Constable, 1907), 189-293. Rev. in The Works of Bernard Shaw (London: Constable, 1930), 11: 249-350, with his Preface “First Aid to Critics” (205-47). Rpt. in The Bodley Head Bernard Shaw. Collected Plays With Their Prefaces (London: Max Reinhardt The Bodley Head, 1971), 3: 67-200 with the “Preface” with its 1933 “Postscript” (15-63); as Major Barbara: Definitive Text. Ed. Nicholas Grene. London: Methuen, 2008 with the “Preface” (133-67). The “Preface” is rpt. in his The Complete Prefaces Volume 1: 1889-1913. Ed. Dan H. Laurence and Daniel J. Leary (London: Allen Lane The Penguin Press, 1993), 245-77. First performed at the Royal Court Theatre, London, November 28, 1905, with the first U.S. performance in New York in 1915. There was a 1940 film directed by Gabriel Pascal (1894-1954) with a screenplay by Shaw, Marjorie Deans (1901-82), and Antole de Grunwald (1910-67).

While the play’s focus is elsewhere, Act III, Scene ii includes a factory town eutopia called Percivale St. Andrews, which includes excellent facilities and a pension system.