Damaged Goods

On the very doorstep of a dignified marriage, George experiences a moment of weakness -- ardent seduction and wayward sexual conquest -- only to suffer horrendous remorse and fear, living as he does in a time when syphilis is raging across Paris, killing men, women and children . . . and his dread only grows when his doctor forbids him to marry -- for four years

Eugene Brieux was lauded by George Bernard Shaw as the greatest French dramatist since Moliere. His play "Damaged Goods" took Washington, D.C., and New York by storm, in 1913 -- and still wins admirers for its unflinching depiction of social ills through its novelized version, by the author of "The Jungle."