SHAW 25 offers eighteen articles, thirteen initially presented at the International Shaw Society conference, 17-21 March 2004, Sarasota, Florida. Additional conference and Shaw Festival Symposia information is provided in the Introduction. Stanley Weintraub's conference keynote, "Shaw for the Here and Now," considers modernizing Shaw's plays, validating Shaw's creative force for today and into the future. Dan H. Laurence's delightful "Shaw's Children" shows a warm, caring, playful Shaw--a giver of self. Howard Ira Einsohn's article on gifting brings together Shaw, Ricoeur, and Derrida to explore the ethics of giving "superabundantly" but not foolishly. Jay Tunney reflects on the ways in which his father, boxer Gene Tunney, fits the personal and professional shoes of Shaw's Cashel Byron, with life imitating art. In "Machiavelli, the Shark, and the Tinpot Tragedienne," Bernard F. Dukore delivers a rereading of Major Barbara that highlights characters and traits, revealing an ensnarling web of beliefs, values, actions, and consequences. Sidney P. Albert's essay explores connections between Major Barbara and Plato's Republic. Using a current theoretical lens, Vicki R. Kennell sees Pygmalion as a narrative literary bridge that predicates postmodern critiques. L.W. Conolly's research on Phillipa Summers reveals a model for Vivie Warren and provides insights into women's lives and education at the turn of the century. In "Who's Modern Now? Shaw, Joyce, and Ibsen's When We Dead Awaken," Kathleen Ochshorn looks at the interrelationships of the three dramatists. Miriam Chirico rewrites critical opinion of You Never Can Tell, arguing that the play is a serious social critique, particularly of marriage. Citing two well-documented instances of Shaw-bashing, John A. Bertolini explores Shaw's responses and reveals Shaw's fair-mindedness. Hannes Schweiger's detailed research substantiates Shaw's influential connection to Viennese culture and politics. Valerie Barnes Lipscomb analyzes Shaw's use of age differences to subvert romantic expectations, thereby drawing greater attention to serious sociocultural issues. Part II continues the legacy of Shaw scholarship with Charles A. Carpenter's must-read bibliographic piece, which reads like a mystery and gives a wealth of research information on Shaw. Focusing on the importance and difficulties of cycle plays, Julie Sparks looks at Man and Superman, Heartbreak House, Back to Methuselah, and current offerings such as Kushner's Angels in America. Kay Li, tracing the influence of Shaw on Chinese drama, argues that modern Chinese drama emerged from the failure of Mrs. Warren's Profession. Frank Duba's article analyzes the evolving role of the Preface in Shaw's works, focusing especially on Man and Superman. Coming full circle, the volume returns to Stanley Weintraub's presentation of Shaw and the fascinating story of Lady Colin Campbell--a story that asks us to consider what it means to be endowed with beauty, fame, and ambition, and what it means to finally lose them. Finally, Michael W. Pharand's addendum to SHAW 24 gives supplementary bibliography on Shavian matters related to love, sex, marriage, and women. SHAW 25 also includes reviews as well as John R. Pfieffer's "Continuing Checklist of Shaviana."

Undoubtedly the best-selling author of his day and well loved by readers in succeeding generations, Charles Dickens was not always a favorite among critics. Celebrated for his novels advocating social reform, for half a century after his death he was ridiculed by those academics who condescended to write about him. Only the faithful band of devotees who called themselves Dickensians kept alive an interest in his work. Then, during the Second World War, he was resurrected by critics, and was soon being hailed as the foremost writer of his age, a literary genius alongside Shakespeare and Milton. More recently, Dickens has again been taken to task by a new breed of literary theorists who fault his chauvinism and imperialist attitudes. Whether he has been adored or despised, however, one thing is certain: no other Victorian novelist has generated more critical commentary. This book traces Dickens's reputation from the earliest reviews through the work of early 21st-century commentators, showing how judgments of Dickens changed with new standards for evaluating fiction. Mazzeno balances attention to prominent critics from the late 19th century through the first three quarters of the 20th with an emphasis on the past three decades, during which literary theory has opened up new ways of reading Dickens. What becomes clear is that, in attempting to provide fresh insight into Dickens's writings, critics often reveal as much about the predilections of their own age as they do about the novelist. Laurence W. Mazzeno is President Emeritus of Alvernia University, Reading, Pennsylvania.

Throughout history, potters, sculptors, painters, poets, novelists, cartoonists, song-writers, photographers, and filmmakers have recorded and tried to make sense of boxing. From Daniel Mendoza to Mike Tyson, boxers have embodied and enacted our anxieties about race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. In her encyclopedic investigation of the shifting social, political, and cultural resonances of this most visceral of sports, Kasia Boddy throws new light on an elemental struggle for dominance whose weapons are nothing more than fists. Looking afresh at everything from neoclassical sculpture to hip-hop lyrics, Boddy explores the ways in which the history of boxing has intersected with the history of mass media. Boddy pulls no punches, looking to the work of such diverse figures as Henry Fielding and Spike Lee, Charlie Chaplin and Philip Roth, James Joyce and Mae West, Bertolt Brecht and Charles Dickens in an all-encompassing study that tells us just how and why boxing has mattered so much to so many.

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.