"In Fanny's first play Fanny O'Dowda, daughter of a Count of the old regime, writes a play which her father promises shall be acted by real actors and reviewed by real critics, the authors' identity of course, being concealed. As an induction, O'Dowda, the courtly aesthete of pre-Victorian days, has an interview with the very commercial theatrical manager of modern times, who cites the methods he employed to get the critics there, a colloquy of delightful wit in its contrasting values. Then come the critics, cheerful satires on the originals of London, in which more fun is poked at their pomposity and ignorance. "The Dark Lady of the Sonnets" was written to aid the Shakespeare Memorial National Theatre in its appeal for a public endowment" --

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‘A tearing, flaring, revivalist drama’ was how Desmond MacCarthy described The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet. Set in America’s Wild West and aptly subtitled ‘A Sermon in Crude Melodrama’, this single-act play concerns the conversion of a horse thief desperate to ‘keep the devil’ in him and die game. Published in 1909, it brought Shaw into conflict with the Lord Chamberlain of England, who banned it on the grounds of alleged blasphemy, and it was twelve years before the play was performed in a London theatre. In an interview Shaw commented, ‘I am sorry that Fanny’s First Play has destroyed the cherished legend that I am an unpopular playwright ... for the first time I have allowed a play of mine to run itself to death ... And the worst of it is it will not die.’ First performed in 1911, the play is a delightful farce in which Shaw debates some of his favourite subjects: middle-class morality, marriage, parents and children and women’s rights. And, deliberately concealing his authorship, Shaw took the opportunity to satirize contemporary drama critics who, he claimed, ‘do not know dramatic chalk from dramatic cheese when it is no longer labelled for them.’

Presents a collection of essays discussing historical aspects of William Shakespeare's sonnets, excerpts from some of the sonnets, and biographical information.