Exclusive to Penguin Classics: the definitive text of Shaw’s powerful historical drama about Joan of Arc, which led him to win the Nobel Prize for Literature—part of the official Bernard Shaw Library A Penguin Classic With Saint Joan, which distills many of the ideas Shaw had been exploring in earlier works on politics, religion, feminism, and creative evolution, he reached the height of his fame as a dramatist. Fascinated by the story of Joan of Arc, but unhappy with the way she had traditionally been depicted, Shaw wanted to remove “the whitewash which disfigures her beyond recognition.” He presents a realistic Joan: proud, intolerant, naïve, foolhardy, and brave—a rebel and a woman for Shaw’s time and our own. This is the definitive text under the editorial supervision of Dan H. Laurence. The volume includes Shaw’s Preface of 1924; the cast list of the first production of Saint Joan; a chronology; and the essay “On Playing Joan” by Imogen Stubbs.

Saint Joan' is a play by George Bernard Shaw about 15th Century French military figure Joan of Arc. Premiering in 1923, three years after her canonization by the Roman Catholic Church, the play dramatises what is known of her life based on the substantial records of her trial. Shaw studied the transcripts and decided that the concerned people acted in good faith according to their beliefs.

This classic traces the life of Joan of Arc from the time she appears to her regional governor, her visit to the Dauphin (where she is undeceived by his disguise) to the siege of Orleans, coronation at Rheims, trial and recantation, and culminating with her death at the stake. Followed by the famous epilogue regarding her canonization, Shaw explores the themes of faith, nationalism and Protestantism. Called variously "the greatest play in English since Shakespeare" and "beautiful, engrossing, and at times exalting", Shaw's masterpiece remains as vivid and timely to modern audiences as it was scandalous and incendiary in its premiere in 1923.

The literary genetics of Shaw's most famous play are here examined for the first time. The sources of Saint Joan are closely compared with the original shorthand manuscript and that is compared with its subsequent revisions. This evidence is supplemented by facts drawn from Shaw's correspondence in print, in the British Library, and in private collections, and by accounts both in print and in the correspondence of people who knew Shaw at the time of his writing Saint Joan. The manuscript and its revisions are examined in the light of all that has been written about the play since it first appeared in 1923. Tyson examines the events that led Shaw to write Saint Joan, establishes the times and places of its composition, and speculates on the "models" upon which Shaw may have based his heroine. The scene-by-scene investigation of the original manuscript accounts as far as possible for later alterations and revisions and discusses passages of critical or historical interest. The concluding chapters survey the circumstances surrounding the first production of the play in the United States, Great Britain, France, and Germany and reflect on the impact that Saint Joan has had on drama for more than half a century.