One of George Bernard Shaw’s most interesting works, Don Juan in Hell blends social satire with intriguing philosophy.

Don Juan in Hell is an excerpt from George Bernard Shaw’s Man and Superman. Three characters from Mozart’s Don Giovanni (Don Juan, Dona Ana, and the statue of the Commander, Dona Ana’s father) meet in Hell—and, joined by the Devil, have a debate on a variety of subjects, including Heaven and Hell, men, women and marriage.

In the end, they must decide where they will spend eternity.

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW (1856-1950) has been called the greatest British dramatist after Shakespeare, a satirist equal to Jonathan Swift, and a playwright whose most profound gift was his ability to make audiences think by provoking them to laughter. He was certainly one of the world’s greatest literary figures.

Author of hundreds of essays, reviews, and letters, fifty-three plays, and numerous books, he is best known for Mrs. Warren’s Profession (1893), Arms and the Man (1894), Caesar and Cleopatra (1898), Man and Superman (1903), Major Barbara (1905), Pygmalion (1913), Heartbreak House (1919), and Saint Joan (1923). He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925.