V. 1. In his introduction Dan H. Laurence notes that 'theatrics' connotes not only activities of a theatrical character but behaviour that manifests itself as theatricality. All the correspondence selected for this volume - most of it hitherto unpublished - relates to Bernard Shaw's theatre dealings and theatrical interest, at the same time attesting to the 'histrionic instinct' and 'theatrified imagination' (his own phrases) of the man who penned them. More than one hundred letters are represented, starting from mid-1889, when Shaw had not yet completed his first play and was known instead as a music critic, journalist, socialist organizer, and street orator. The letters reveal a consummate man of the theatre: a dramatist, director, actor, designer, publicist, financial backer, translator, and critic concerned with such varied issues as censorship, theatre politics, prying journalists, and wireless and television performance. The letters are shaded with histrionic tones of assumed anger, irritation, and anguish. The style invariably is colloquial, free-flowing, ebullient - and personal. v. 2. Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells are among the best-known and most controversial literary figures of the twentieth century. Both were rebelliously critical of the social and political, familial and sexual conventions and structures of their time. They shared broadly similar interests, but their lifestyles differed sharply - as did their views on many subjects, including those discussed in their correspondence: religion, socialism, science, war and world history, the theatre, the profession of authorship, and more. The letters are always forthright, often abusive and quarrelsome, sometimes suggesting that the relationship cannot last. They are also often warm, good-natured, playful, and generous - reflecting a fundamental mutual respect and similarity of outlook, however contrasting the temperament and style. The great majority of the two writers' correspondence is published here for the first time. v. 3. After movie-makers in England bungled film versions of Bernard Shaw's How He Lied to Her Husband and Arms and the Man, producers and directors in Germany and Holland botched those based on Pygmalion, and a Hollywood screenplay desecrated The Devil's Disciple, Shaw took a chance on Gabriel Pascal and gave him permission to produce a movie version of Pygmalion in England. The contract was signed on 13 December 1935 and Pascal, a charming, flamboyant Hungarian emigre with relatively little experience in cinema, did the playwright proud. Shaw's gamble paid off in this Pygmalion, which, to this day, is usually claimed to be the best film version of any of his plays. v. 4. Virtually ignored in histories of twentieth-century British theatre in favour of the more celebrated relationship of Bernard Shaw and Harley Granville Barker, the friendship of Bernard Shaw and Sir Barry Jackson is given prominence in this new book by L.W. Conolly. The collection of 183 letters, all but two of which are previously unpublished, sheds new light on a partnership that for Shaw was the most important of his later playwriting career, and for Jackson was central to his pioneering and acclaimed work in British regional theatre in both Birmingham and Stratford-upon-Avon. v. 5. Bernard Shaw was twenty-four and Sidney Webb twenty-one when they met in October 1880 at a gathering of a debating club called the Zetetical Society. Having sympathetic interests, both men decided, after some personal and joint exploration, to devote their lives to improving the human condition. This collection of 140 annotated letters, 74 of which have never been published, documents the subsequent friendship and collaboration shared by Shaw, Webb, and Webb's wife Beatrice, throughout their lives. v. 6. George Bernard Shaw and Nancy Lady Astor enjoyed a close friendship for over twenty years, from the late 1920s until Shaw's death in 1950. Although opposites in many matters - particularly politics - Shaw and Astor were irresistibly attracted to each other, both being unconventional firebrands with ready wits. This collection of nearly 250 letters between Shaw and Astor - as well as between Astor and Shaw's wife, Charlotte, and Shaw's secretary, Blanche Patch - illustrates the rewarding friendship the two shared and the numerous issues they debated. v. 7. George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) once quipped that it is "up to the author to take care of himself." This rich selection of Shaw's correspondence with his US and UK publishers proves how much the dramatist lived up to his own words by providing the details of his steady involvement in the publication of his works. v. 8. Unlikely friends and collaborators, Bernard Shaw and Gilbert Murray carried on a lively and wide-ranging correspondence for more than fifty years. When they began exchanging letters in the late 1890s, Shaw was a renowned Fabian propagandist, reviewer, and author of anti-conventional plays. Murray was a classicist and translator of ancient Greek drama who would eventually become Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford. Beginning with their shared distaste for the popular "well-made plays" of the era, their correspondence quickly expanded into collaboration--Murray helped revise Shaw's Major Barbara, in which he appears as a character-and discussion of a vast range of issues ranging from alphabet reform and psychic phenomena to the League of Nations and international politics.

Letter from Gilbert Murray to George Bernard Shaw concerning the censorship of Shaw's play "The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet" by Irish authorities.

Shaw, now in its twenty-second year, publishes general articles on Shaw and his milieu, reviews, notes, and the authoritative Continuing Checklist of Shaviana, the bibliography of Shaw studies.

This book combines the insights of thirteen Shavian scholars as they examine the themes of marriage, relationships and partnerships throughout all of Bernard Shaw’s major works. It also connects Shaw’s own experiences of love and marriage to the themes that emerge in his works, showing how his personal relationships in and out of matrimonial bonds change the ways his characters enter and exit marriages and misalliances. While providing a wealth of new analysis, this collection of essays also leaves lingering questions for the reader to spark continuing dialogue in both individual and academic settings.

This is the first comprehensive account of the life and work of the distinguished scholar and public figure Gilbert Murray (1866-1957). Sixteen contributors survey the many spheres in which he was active, and the book opens with memoirs by two of his grandchildren.

This reading of Bernard Shaw focuses on his habit of seeing the world in terms of contraries, a habit related to his basic rejection of absolutes, his distaste for finality. The author examines nine of Shaw's finest plays: Man and Superman, Major Barbara, John Bull's Other Island, The Doctor's Dilemma, Pygmalion, Misalliance, Heartbreak House, Saint Joan, and Back to Methuselah. The book takes seriously Shaw's claim that all of his characters are "right from their several points of view." We are compelled to respect the qualities and values of opposing and very different characters in these plays, and we also have a sense of their complementary defects. J. L. Wisenthal's commentary sheds light on Shaw's techniques of portrayal as well as his dialectical habit of mind. This finely written essay is for all lovers of Shaw and the theater.

A dozen meaty essays on G. B. S. as social critic, playwright, publicist, & gadfly written to commemorate his 90th birthday. Illus.