The Perfect Wagnerite

Three water-maidens play in the Rhine’s green depths, guarding gold they prize for its beauty, not its price. Then the dwarf Alberich arrives, longing for what they cannot give him.

Writing in 1898, Bernard Shaw takes Wagner’s four-part Ring out of fabulous antiquity and places it amid the struggles of modern society. He welcomes its river music, dragons, thunder and love songs, while insisting that no technical musical training is needed to follow the drama. At its heart, as Shaw reads it, lies a perilous choice: love or gold, human fellowship or power built on other people’s hunger. From the Rhine’s unspoiled treasure to the plutocratic capitals of his own day, he asks what happens when wealth overwhelms every generous impulse. Is Alberich’s story a legend—or a mirror held up to Shaw’s age?

With centuries of literature, it's inevitable that some will fall through the cracks. We hunt down public domain works and restore them so they're not lost to the world.

Who are we? We're Cairn Press. Our background is in design, publishing, typography, and technology. These skills fuel our mission to create the highest quality Public Domain eBooks available online, at an affordable price. We give them the treatment they deserve; our proprietary process restores books for a better overall user experience in design, readability, and e-reader compatibility.