George Bernard Shaw

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Standard Name: Shaw, George Bernard
Used Form: G. B. Shaw
GBS was a drama critic who called for reform of theatrical practice, and a dramatist who attached to his plays on publication, lengthy prefaces expounding the social and dramatic issues opened by the play itself. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1925. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography calls him a polemicist, and says that much of the drama of his time and after was indirectly in his debt for his creation of a drama of moral passion and of intellectual conflict and debate.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Travel Stella Benson
SB holidayed on the French Riviera, where she met Michael Arlen and George Bernard Shaw .
Grant, Joy. Stella Benson: A Biography. Macmillan.
247-8
Travel Constance Smedley
Not all her prewar travelling was Lyceum-related. She was in Germany again a few years later, as an agent for Delineator, an American magazine, having left at short notice to track down Elizabeth von Arnim
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Pam Gems
The play opens in Hollywood, with Mrs Patrick Campbell regaling a new, American generation with her memories. It centres on her relationship with George Bernard Shaw , but her life and career are also...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text G. B. Stern
Her early novels combine a strain of intellectualism (characters discuss Shaw and Nietzsche ) with a self-conscious modernity (attention to issues and to sophistication of tone). She was held to belong to the stream of...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Augusta Gregory
The volume includes detailed accounts of the Abbey 's encounters with English and Irish censorship, including the struggles over Shaw 's The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet and Synge 's The Playboy of the Western World...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text E. Nesbit
Daphne fictionalizes her affair with Shaw : it traces Daphne's experience from first passionate kiss to the misery of being rejected.
Briggs, Julia. A Woman of Passion: The Life of E. Nesbit, 1858-1924. Hutchinson.
91, 94, 98
Shaw appears as Mr Henry; EN covers her tracks to some...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Florence Farr
One piece critiques Shaw 's clinical treatment of his female models: [H]e seats her in a dentist's chair, puts a gag in her mouth, isolates a tooth as ruthlessly as any dentist and then takes...
Textual Production George Egerton
In 1907 GE wrote a comedy entitled His Wife's Family, about an Irishwoman's allegiance to her own relations as opposed to those of her husband.
Egerton, George. A Leaf from the Yellow Book. Editor White, Terence de Vere, Richards Press.
65, 68
She sent this play too to Shaw
Textual Production Margaret Haig, Viscountess Rhondda
She included essays previously published in Time and Tide about her travels to far-off places such as Gibraltar, Morocco, Greece, Egypt, and the holy places of the earth:
Margaret Haig, Viscountess Rhondda,. Notes on the Way. Books for Libraries Press.
2
Palestine...
Textual Production Cicely Hamilton
This magazine aimed to reach the cultured public, and bring before it in a convincing and moderate form, the case for the Enfranchisement of Women.
Whitelaw, Lis. The Life and Rebellious Times of Cicely Hamilton. Women’s Press.
91-2
It carried contributions from Millicent Fawcett , Mary Lowndes
Textual Production Dorothy Richardson
In her correspondence Richardson addresses a great range of topics, including her own varied reading. She comments on women writers from Julian of Norwich through Jane Austen , Emily and Charlotte Brontë , George Eliot
Textual Production Annie Besant
AB owned and edited the magazine Our Corner, which was launched in 1883 and ran until 1888. It cost sixpence and featured fiction, essays, and poetry along with puzzles, and information about chess, gardening...
Textual Production Freya Stark
In Such Good Friends and Friends of a Lifetime, Sir Sydney Cockerell published a selection of letters from his (mostly famous) associates; according to critics, among the best were those written by G. B. Shaw
Textual Production Lady Colin Campbell
As Q. E. D., she wrote a column called In the Picture Galleries, reviewing art exhibitions and addressing current events.
Fleming, G. H. Lady Colin Campbell: Victorian ’Sex Goddess’. The Windrush Press.
243
She and Shaw collaborated on columns, and Shaw would sometimes write an...
Textual Production Evelyn Waugh
EW embarked on travel writing with Labels: A Mediterranean Journal, 1930, which sets out in breezy letter-writing style to record comfortable travel (around the Middle East and North Africa as well as southern Europe...

Timeline

1878: William Swan Sonnenschein and J. Archibald...

Writing climate item

1878

William Swan Sonnenschein and J. Archibald Allen formed a partnership in the publishing firm of Swan Sonnenschein and Allen , at 15 Paternoster Square, London.

1883: L. R. S. Tomalin, an early disciple of Gustave...

Building item

1883

L. R. S. Tomalin , an early disciple of Gustave Jaeger 's woollen movement, set up the Jaeger Company in Fore Street, London, to sell Dr Jaeger's Sanitary Woollen Clothing..

January 1884: The Fabian Society was founded in London...

National or international item

January 1884

The Fabian Society was founded in London to publicize socialist ideas and investigate the application of socialist principles to British conditions.

Christmas 1889: The Fabian Essays appeared, edited by George...

Writing climate item

Christmas 1889

The Fabian Essays appeared, edited by George Bernard Shaw .

early June 1890: Philippa Fawcett of Newnham College, Cambridge,...

Building item

early June 1890

Philippa Fawcett of Newnham College, Cambridge , was placed above the Senior Wrangler in the university's mathematics results.

February 1891: Theatre producer and critic J. T. Grein founded...

Building item

February 1891

Theatre producer and critic J. T. Grein founded the Independent Theatre Society in London to promote literary rather than commercial plays, and the new drama in particular.

April 1892: Physical confrontation broke out at a meeting...

Building item

April 1892

Physical confrontation broke out at a meeting in St James's Hall, London, of supporters of women's franchise.

By April 1894: English theatre patron Annie Horniman funded...

Writing climate item

By April 1894

English theatre patron Annie Horniman funded a repertory season at the Avenue Theatre (later the Avenue Playhouse), London which concentrated on the new drama.

1897: With her publication of Grains of Sense,...

Women writers item

1897

With her publication of Grains of Sense, philosopher Victoria, Lady Welby , shifted from theology towards a more academic and analytic study of meaning.

31 May 1898: George Bedborough, secretary of the Legitimation...

Building item

31 May 1898

George Bedborough , secretary of the Legitimation League which sought to change the law to improve the position of illegitimate children, was arrested, largely in an attempt to damage the League through him.

1904: Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree (father of the...

Building item

1904

Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree (father of the writers Viola and Iris Tree ) founded an Academy of Dramatic Art at His Majesty's Theatre in the Haymarket, London.

Autumn 1904 to summer 1907: Under the management of playwright and director...

Writing climate item

Autumn 1904 to summer 1907

Under the management of playwright and director Harley Granville-Barker and business manager J. E. Vedrenne , the Court Theatre became the first permanent home of the new drama.

1906: Tolstoy on Shakespeare, which included a...

Women writers item

1906

Tolstoy on Shakespeare, which included a translation of Tolstoy by Isabella Fyvie Mayo as I. F. M., and Vladimir Grigorevich Chertkov as V. Tchertkoff (as well as an essay by George Bernard Shaw ), was published.

1906: At the Annual General Meeting of the Society...

Women writers item

1906

At the Annual General Meeting of the Society of Authors , George Bernard Shaw deplored the dragging down of literary earnings by groups possessing a non-literary income, particularly married women.

1907: Alfred Richard Orage and Holbrook Jackson...

Writing climate item

1907

Alfred Richard Orage and Holbrook Jackson acquired the weekly reviewNew Age (founded in 1894).
Kindley, Evan. “Ismism”. London Review of Books, Vol.
36
, No. 2, pp. 33-5.
34
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
under Orage
Solo: Search Oxford University Libraries Online. http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?vid=OXVU1&fromLogin=true&reset_config=true.

Texts

Shaw, George Bernard. “An Explanatory Word from Mr. Shaw”. Florence Farr, Bernard Shaw, W.B. Yeats: Letters, edited by Clifford Bax, Home and Van Thal, 1946, p. vii - x.
Shaw, George Bernard. Arms and the Man. G. Richards, 1894.
Shaw, George Bernard. Back to Methuselah. Brentano’s, 1921.
Shaw, George Bernard. Buoyant Billions: Farfetched Fables, and Shakes versus Shav. Constable and Company, 1950.
Shaw, George Bernard. Common Sense about the War. Statesman Pub. Co., 1914.
Shaw, George Bernard. Fanny’s First Play. Constable, 1910.
Shaw, George Bernard. Heartbreak House, Great Catherine, and Playlets of the War. Constable, 1919.
Shaw, George Bernard. In Good King Charles’s Golden Days: A History Lesson. Constable & Co., 1939.
Shaw, George Bernard. John Bull’s Other Island and Major Barbara: also How He Lied to Her Husband. The Times Book Club, 1907.
Shaw, George Bernard. Man and Superman; a Comedy, and a Philosophy. A. Constable, 1903.
Shaw, George Bernard. “Note on Lady Gregory’s Plays”. Lady Gregory, Fifty Years After, edited by Dan H. Laurence et al., Colin Smythe, 1987, pp. 274-6.
Shaw, George Bernard. Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant. G. Richards, 1898.
Shaw, George Bernard. Press Cuttings. Constable & Co., 1909.
Shaw, George Bernard. Pygmalion. Constable & Co., 1914.
Shaw, George Bernard. Saint Joan. Constable, 1923.
Shaw, George Bernard. The Apple Cart. Constable & Co., 1930.
Shaw, George Bernard. The Doctor’s Dilemma, Getting Married, and The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet. Constable and Company, 1911.
Shaw, George Bernard. The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism. Constable & Co., 1928.
Shaw, George Bernard. The Quintessence of Ibsenism. Walter Scott, 1891.
Shaw, George Bernard. The Quintessence of Ibsenism. Hill and Wang, 1937.
Shaw, George Bernard. Three Plays for Puritans: The Devil’s Disciple, Caesar and Cleopatra, & Captain Brassbound’s Conversion. G. Richards, 1901.
Shaw, George Bernard. Too True to be Good: Village Wooing, and On the Rocks. Constable and Company, Limited., 1934.
Shaw, George Bernard. What I Really Wrote about the War. Constable & Co., 1931.