Cashel Byron's Profession

Shaw, Bernard, 1856-1950Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.9

Word count: 466K words
Chapters: 47

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Cashel Byron's Profession by Bernard ShawAuthor: Shaw, Bernard, 1856-1950,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Jun 1, 2004

Editor's review

Bernard Shaw's early play Cashel Byron's Profession centres on the romance between the prizefighter Cashel Byron and the aristocratic young lady Lydia Carew. Through professional boxing—a trade then regarded as coarse—Shaw mocks the respectability and class prejudice of English high society. Shaw's wit runs through the dialogue; beneath the light-hearted verbal sparring, the characters expose the true nature of money, status and the marriage market, with the satirical edge concealed within a comic frame. This public-domain electronic text, released by Project Gutenberg, gives readers low-cost access to Shaw's drama as originally written and serves as an approachable introduction to late nineteenth-century English social attitudes and to Shaw's dramatic style. Readers may note the play's discussion of professional dignity and class mobility, issues that still resonate today.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Literary readers interested in English drama and Shaw's works
History enthusiasts who want to learn about late nineteenth-century English social attitudes through a play
Readers with good English proficiency who wish to read public-domain English classics

Not a good fit for

Readers who prefer tightly plotted narrative fiction
Beginners with weak English reading skills who need Chinese annotations

Reading tips

Read the whole play first to grasp the relationships, then revisit key dialogue to appreciate the layers of satire
Consult background material such as Shaw's prefaces to his plays to understand his intent as a social critic
Take notes on the play's debates about profession and status, and organize them into thematic notes afterwards

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book a novel or a play?

It is a play by Bernard Shaw, made up of dialogue and stage directions. Readers need to imagine the stage scenes and characters' actions, which differs from the narrative mode of a novel.

How difficult is the English? Is it suitable for self-study?

The text is late nineteenth-century English. The dialogue is witty but the sentences are long, and it contains period expressions and depictions of class accents. It suits upper-intermediate and advanced readers; beginners may prefer an annotated edition.

Why is the prizefighting setting worth attention?

The boxer's identity is Shaw's tool for challenging upper-class respectability. The debate surrounding this profession reveals contemporary prejudices about labour, status and marriage.

Comments

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About the author

Shaw, Bernard, 1856-1950 Author

Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) was an Irish playwright and critic. Public information about the details of his life is limited, yet his works have had a profound influence. The collection here contains 53 of his works, covering drama, criticism, and discursive essays. His representative works include Pygmalion, Mrs. Warren's Profession, Man and Superman, Candida, Caesar and Cleopatra, Major Barbara, and Arms and the Man. His plays often use witty, sharp dialogue to explore such issues as social class, gender relations, moral hypocrisy, and idealism, combining comic tension with argumentative force to form a distinctive style of drama of ideas. Shaw was skilled at presenting conflicts of ideas through exchanges between characters, turning the stage into a place of public discussion and exerting an important influence on the development of modern English-language drama.