Heartbreak house, begun in 1913 and completed In 1916, is one of Bernard Shaw's most provocative plays and merits fuller aesthetic analysis than his critics have yet given it. Distinctive both for its architectonic firmness and its elusive symbolism, Heartbreak House is one of Shaw's major accomplishments as artist. It summarizes, furthermore, the themes and attitudes of his previous work, in particular the ideas broached in “The Revolutionist's Handbook” appended to Man and Superman (1903). It also holds in embryo Shaw's departures in doctrine and technique in the plays beginning with The Apple Cart (1929).