George Bernard Shaw’s great novel follows Cashel Byron, a world-champion prizefighter, as he tries to woo wealthy aristocrat Lydia Carew without revealing his illegal profession. Lydia,
portrayed as a moral and intelligent woman, is contrasted throughout with the ruffian and rogue Cashel. When Cashel goes to England to secure his world title in that country he meets
Lydia at her country manor. As their romance deepens, Byron finds his world unavoidably facing rupture, forced to choose between his two loves.
