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Unpublished Shaw

Author: Bernard Shaw

Publisher: Penn State Press

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 9780271015774

SHAW 16 contains twenty-nine unpublished pieces by Shaw written between 1877 and 1950. The most significant is a ten-page draft synopsis of Man and Superman (the original manuscript draft of the play has been lost) in a contemplated five-act version, providing scholars with a hitherto unavailable ur-text. Equally important for the biographical and artistic insights they offer are the early literary efforts found in Shaw's first opus notebook, including an extended narrative-verse fragment of 1877 set in Dublin; a polemic (his first) on oakum picking and prison conditions; a criticism of organists and orchestral conductors; and an attempted evaluation of contemporary arts and letters in 1878. We find Shaw, through the persona of a female narrator, creating in his own image a fictional memoir of the young Hector Berlioz; offering an ironic vindication of housebreakers (in anticipation of Heartbreak House); exploring the seamy side of the prizefight ring; examining "exhausted" genres of Victorian art in 1880; defining the "true signification of the term Gentleman"; lecturing on Socialism and the family and on realism as the goal of fiction; and penetratingly considering the future of marriage in a rejected book review, one of four included in the volume. The dimensions of Shaw's political views may be examined through nearly a dozen commentaries on politics and on war and peace, ranging from the Boer War (an 1899 draft letter to the press, "Why Not Abolish the Soldier?") and 1903 municipal elections to U.S. Liberty Loans, the Italo-Abyssinian War, "how to talk intelligently" about the Second World War, and the implications of the hydrogen bomb in the nuclear age. For good measure, the volume concludes with two brief playlets, previously unrecorded. The editors have arranged these pieces individually or grouped by theme and genre as near to chronological order as possible, and the reader is brought closer to the original manuscripts by the retention of Shaw's stylistic and spelling inconsistencies, and by transliteration of the shorthand notations he frequently inserted between lines or in the margins. Each text is supplemented by an editorial note providing its provenance and a detailed physical description of the manuscript.

Shaw Offstage

Author: Fred D. Crawford

Publisher: Penn State University Press

Published: 1989

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13:

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The newest volume of SHAW emphasizes Shaw's mastery of nondramatic forms. In "My Dear Dorothea: Shaw's Earliest Sketch," Laura Tahir examines Shaw's first sustained literary effort, an instructional tract for the moral education of a young girl. Ray Bradbury introduces Shaw's "The Best Books for Children," a previously unpublished essay offering thoughts on children's literature. Stanley Weintraub evaluates Shaw's political ballads, published anonymously in the Star in 1588-89. Included in the volume are Shaw's contribution to The Salt of the Earth, a collaborative novel published in the World in 1890 introduced by Fred D. Crawford, and "Civilization and the Soldier," an essay reflecting on the nature of the British Empire in the context of the Boer War. Lee W. Saperstein introduces Shaw's previously unpublished "Orkney and Shetland," a short travel guide that Shaw wrote for the Royal Automobile Club. Shaw's nondramatic writing frequently illuminates the plays. Stuart E. Baker analyzes The Quintessence of Ibsenism to define Shavian realism as it applies to the plays, and Michael J. Holland explores Shaw's short fiction to trace the early development of techniques that served Shaw well in his drama. Howard Ira Einsohn looks at the relationship between The Intelligent Woman's Guide and The Apple Cart. Three articles examine Shaw's nondramatic concerns in a biographical and historical context. In "The Black Girl and Some Lesser Quests: 1932-1934," Leon H. Hugo traces the origin of The Black Girl. Vivian Ducat's "Bernard Shaw and the King's English" tells of Shaw's involvement with the BBC Advisory Committee on Spoken English. In "The Bernard Shaw/Edward Gordon Craig Feud," James Fisher explores Shaw and Craig's public and private relationship, which included disagreements involving dramatic theory and the publication of the Shawl Terry correspondence. SHAW 9 emphasizes Shaw's mastery of nondramatic forms and shows the extent to which, for Shaw, drama remained only one of many vehicles available for conveying the Shavian viewpoint.

Shaw and History

Author: Gale K. Larson

Publisher: Penn State Press

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 238

ISBN-13: 9780271019185

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This special issue of Shaw offers ten articles that focus on the theme of "Shaw and History." That focus illuminates Shaw's concept of history as art and its uses for dramatic purposes. It is a focus that is broadly applied to the historical perspective. Views range from Shaw's uses of historical sources in the Shavianizing of history, his uses of historical, geographical, and political places and events in his work, to views that place selected Shavian works within a historical context. Stanley Weintraub discusses Shaw's references to Cetewayo, Zulu chieftain, in Cashel Byron's Profession as the first incorporation of a contemporary historical figure into his work. John Allett explores the liberal, socialist, and radical feminist views of prostitution in nineteenth-century England and demonstrates how those political views are developed within the unfolding action ofMrs Warren's Profession. Sidney P. Albert studies the Utopian movement, "The Garden City," to determine the extent to which that movement influenced Shaw's conception of Perivale St. Andres inMajor Barbara. He also narrates his personal attempt to identify the Ballycorus smelting works and its surroundings as well as the campanile, or Folly, at Faringdon as sites that provided the scenic sources for Perivale St. Andres inMajor Barbara. Gale K. Larson has edited a partially unpublished Shavian manuscript that addresses Shaw's relationship with Frank Harris and, among other matters, sets the historical record right as to who deserves the credit for attributing the identity of the Dark Lady of the Sonnets to Mary Fitton. He also examines the historical sources that influenced Shaw's views on Charles II, the "Merry Monarch," in"In Good King Charles's Golden Days" and demonstrates Shaw's reclamation of yet another historical figure from the traditional historians. David Gunby examines the first-night performance of O'Flaherty, V.C. for purposes of setting the historical record straight as to the facts of that production. Wendi Chen presents the stage history of the production of Mrs Warren's Professionin China during the early 1920s and argues its central role in shaping modern Chinese drama. Rodelle Weintraub assesses Too True to Be Good as a dream play within the context of the nightmarish times of World War I. Michael M. O'Hara surveys the Federal Theatre's productions of Androcles and the Lionin the 1930s to reveal the political and religious repressions that those productions underscore. Shaw 19 also includes three reviews of recent additions to Shavian scholarship as well as John R. Pfeiffer's "Continuing Checklist of Shaviana."