Arms and the Man: A Quick Read edition

Discover a new way to read classics with Quick Read.
This Quick Read edition includes both the full text and a summary for each chapter.
- Reading time of the complete text: about 2 hours
- Reading time of the summarized text: 1 minute

"Arms and the Man" is a comedy play by George Bernard Shaw that deals with the futility of war and the hypocrisies of human nature. The play takes place during the 1885 Serbo-Bulgarian War and follows the story of Raina Petkoff, a young Bulgarian woman engaged to Sergius Saranoff, one of the heroes of the war. Raina hides a Swiss mercenary soldier, Captain Bluntschli, in her home after he climbs in through her bedroom balcony window. The play ends with Raina proclaiming her love for Bluntschli and him clearing up the major's troop movement problems. The play was one of Shaw's first commercial successes and has been performed numerous times since its premiere in 1894. It has been adapted into an operetta, "The Chocolate Soldier," and has inspired a pejorative military term in Israel. The play's message that war is not a romantic adventure still resonates today.