Candida

by George Bernard Shaw Narrated by LibriVox Community

Overview

The play is set in the northeast suburbs of London in the month of October. It tells the story of Candida, the wife of a famous clergyman, the Reverend James Mavor Morell. Morell is a Christian Socialist, popular in the Church of England, but Candida is responsible for much of his success. Candida returns home briefly from a trip to London with Eugene Marchbanks, a young poet who wants to rescue her from what he presumes to be her dull family life.

Editorial Reviews

Criticas

Grade 3-5–Cándida is an 11-year-old girl from Caracas who is spending her summer vacation with her grandmother in the village of Maturín. In the three chapters of this book, readers get to know a typical middle schooler, her surprisingly mischievous Venezuelan grandmother, and the village itself, filled with interesting people. Cándida is at first embarrassed by her grandmother's countrified habits, but she soon discovers that there's logic behind her grandmother's odd behavior. The girl learns not to be overly concerned about what people think of her, not to be afraid of ghosts and things that go bump in the night, how to treat a crabby neighbor, and how to deal with her first love. Peli's illustrations are delightfully hip, showing Cándida in a midriff-baring shirt and baggy pants playing on her grandmother's patio, walking to town, and strolling through the town's main plaza. He takes pains with his pen-and-ink sketches to detail the life of the village, as well as the grandmother's shapeless flowery dresses and sparse hair. This delightful book is written in very accessible language and will appeal to reluctant readers. Especially recommended for school libraries.
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—María Otero-Boisvert, "Críticas"

From the Publisher

By the Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature

“Candida probably deserves to be called Shaw’s masterpiece.” —Peter Gahan, from the Introduction

“[Shaw] did his best in redressing the fateful unbalance between truth and reality, in lifting mankind to a higher rung of social maturity. He often pointed a scornful finger at human frailty, but his jests were never at the expense of humanity.” —Thomas Mann
 
“Shaw will not allow complacency; he hates second-hand opinions; he attacks fashion; he continually challenges and unsettles, questioning and provoking us even when he is making us laugh. And he is still at it. No cliché or truism of contemporary life is safe from him.” —Michael Holroyd
 
“In his works Shaw left us his mind. . . . Today we have no Shavian wizard to awaken us with clarity and paradox, and the loss to our national intelligence is immense.” —The Sunday Times
 
“He was a Tolstoy with jokes, a modern Dr. Johnson, a universal genius who on his own modest reckoning put even Shakespeare in the shade.” —The Independent
 
“His plays were superb exercises in high-level argument on every issue under the sun, from feminism and God, to war and eternity, but they were also hits—and still are.” —The Daily Mail

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169422696
Publisher:	LibriVox
Publication date:	08/25/2014
Sales rank:	1,134,977

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