A Bernard Shaw Chronology

A.M. Gibbs provides an authoritative and comprehensive account of the life, career and associations of George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), one of the most eminent and influential literary figures of the modern age. Drawing on a wide range of published and unpublished material, this work illuminates the complex fabric of Shaw's extraordinary career as playwright, novelist, critic, orator, political activist, social commentator, avant-garde thinker and controversialist. Images of Shaw's daily private life, and of his tangled love affairs, flirtations and friendships, are intertwined with the records of his prodigiously productive career as public figure and creative writer, in a fully documented study which is both a scholarly resource and a lively biographical portrait. An introductory chapter explores theoretical issues in biography raised by the chronology form; and a chapter on Shaw's ancestry and family supplies new evidence about his Irish background. A Who's Who section contains thumbnail sketches of over two hundred contemporaries of Shaw who had significant associations with him.

A.M. Gibbs provides an authoritative and comprehensive account of the life, career and associations of George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), one of the most eminent and influential literary figures of the modern age. Drawing on a wide range of published and unpublished material, this work illuminates the complex fabric of Shaw's extraordinary career as playwright, novelist, critic, orator, political activist, social commentator, avant-garde thinker and controversialist. Images of Shaw's daily private life, and of his tangled love affairs, flirtations and friendships, are intertwined with the records of his prodigiously productive career as public figure and creative writer, in a fully documented study which is both a scholarly resource and a lively biographical portrait. An introductory chapter explores theoretical issues in biography raised by the chronology form; and a chapter on Shaw's ancestry and family supplies new evidence about his Irish background. A Who's Who section contains thumbnail sketches of over two hundred contemporaries of Shaw who had significant associations with him.

Bernard Shaw fashioned public images of himself that belied the nature and depth of his emotional experiences and the complexity of his intellectual outlook. In this absorbing biography, noted Shavian authority A. M. Gibbs debunks many of the elements that form the foundation of Shaw's self-created legend--from his childhood (which was not the loveless experience he claimed publicly), to his sexual relationships with several women, to his marriage, his politics, his Irish identity, and his controversial philosophy of Creative Evolution. Drawing on previously unpublished materials, including never-before-seen photographs and early sketches by Shaw, Gibbs offers a fresh perspective and brings us closer than ever before to the human being behind the masks.

G.B. Shaw Is A Literary Mohican Who Bestrode Modern Thought Like A Colossus, But He Was Not A Historian In A Popular Sense. He Wrote Many Plays On Historical Themes, And The Success Of His Historical Plays Shows What He Could Have Achieved If He Had Devoted Himself To Historical Drama.The Present Book Major History Plays Of Shaw: A Fresh Look Presents A Close Study Of Shaw S Select History Plays, Especially The Shavian Notion Of Historical Truth. Shaw, Perhaps, Does Not Believe That History Is Only A Storehouse Of Past Records. He Views The Past Critically As A Step Towards Changing The Present. For Shaw, Historical Truth Is Intensely Related To The Growth Of His Mind, His Firm Faith In The Creed Of Creative Evolution.It Is A Well Conceived And Lucidly Written Book And Commends Itself For Academic Respectability. In This Scholarly Endeavour, Readers Interested In Shaw S Works Will Find Much To Engage Their Attention. It Is Particularly Useful For The Students, Researchers And Teachers Of English Literature.

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."

George Bernard Shaw has been called the second greatest playwright in English (after William Shakespeare) and one of the inventors of modern celebrity as the most famous public intellectual of his time. Beginning in the 1880s, as a critic and as a playwright, he transformed British drama, bringing to it intellectual substance, ethical imperatives, and modernity itself, setting the theatrical course for the subsequent century. That his legacy endures seventy years after his death is testament to the prescience of his thinking and his prolific creativity. This Very Short Introduction looks at Shaw's life, starting with his upbringing in Ireland, and then takes a chronological approach through his works. Considering Shaw's committed antagonism on behalf of a range of socio-political issues; his use of comedy as a mode for communicating serious ideas; and his rhetorical style that pushes conventional boundaries, Christopher Wixson provides an overview of the creative evolution of core themes throughout Shaw's long career. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

A wonderful restoration comedy written by the great George Bernard Shaw, the play is set as a discussion on the nature of power and wealth between King Charles II and Isaac Newton, George Fox and Godfrey Kneller. The kings three mistresses intervening along with his queen.

A collection of literary criticism from the Nobel Prize–winning playwright behind such classics as Saint Joan and Pygmalion. The Critical Shaw: On Literature is a comprehensive selection of renowned Irish playwright and Nobel Laureate Bernard Shaw’s ideas and opinions on a wide range of literary forms of expression, from Shakespearean drama to ghost stories, from naturalist novels to philosophical essays. Shaw meticulously applied his comprehensive knowledge of the intricacies of writing and publishing (composition, typesetting, style, themes, censorship) and in the process produced an extensive array of critical works spanning more than fifty years. Always with an axe to grind—whether aesthetic, ethical, or otherwise—Shaw tested the boundaries of satire in his critical essays, occasionally locking horns as a result with some of the most prominent authors of his lifetime. Displaying wit and wisdom in equal proportions, some of his reviews remain fresh even though the authors and books they appraised have long since fallen into oblivion. Shaw’s views about literature challenged established conventions of the canon and helped to shape a renewed collective concept of literature. The Critical Shaw series brings together, in five volumes and from a wide range of sources, selections from Bernard Shaw’s voluminous writings on topics that exercised him for the whole of his professional career: Literature, Music, Politics, Religion, and Theater. The volumes are edited by leading Shaw scholars, and all include an introduction, a chronology of Shaw’s life and works, annotated texts, and a bibliography. The series editor is L.W. Conolly, literary adviser to the Shaw Estate and former president of the International Shaw Society.