Quintessence of Ibsenism (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)

In this 1891 essay, Shaw champions the works of Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, praising his social realism and his characters’ struggles against a hypocritical society. Shaw then pushes farther, dividing humankind into three categories—of which, he declares, “Out of a thousand persons, there are 700 Philistines, 299 idealists, and only one lone realist.”