<DIV><P><B>'I am as fond of fine music and handsome buildings as Milton was, or Cromwell, or Bunyan; but if I found that they were becoming the instruments of a systematic idolatry of sensuousness, I would hold it good statesmanship to blow up every cathedral in the world to pieces with dynamite'</B> <p> Disgusted and bored by the trend for titillation and sham on the London stage, Shaw wrote these plays both to educate and entertain his audiences. In <b>The Devil's Disciple</b>, a clergyman turned soldier and the Shavian ideal of a Puritan hero?'like all genuinely religious men, a reprobate and an outcast'?willingly risks his life for a stranger. <b>Caesar and Cleopatra</b>, a brilliant satire on contemporary Britain, contains an utterly unexpected portrait of Julius Caesar ('part brute, part woman'). In <b>Captain Brassbound's Conversion</b> it is Lady Cicely's cunning manipulation of the truth that ensures that fairness, rather than justice, prevails. </p> <p><b>Three Plays for Puritans</b> reveals Shaw's constant delight in turning received wisdom upside down and celebrating the triumph of the individual conscience over accepted morality. </p> <p>The definitive text under the editorial supervision of Dan H. Laurence </p> </div>