Widowers' Houses (1892) was the first play by G. Bernard Shaw, the famous Irish playwright and Nobel Prize winner.
It is one of the three plays Shaw published as Plays Unpleasant in 1898, because its purpose is not to entertain its audience - as the traditional Victorian theatre was supposed to - but instead to raise awareness of social problems and serve as a criticism of capitalist behaviour. The other two plays were The Philanderer and Mrs Warren's Profession.