How could Bernard Shaw have found anything to admire in Queen Victoria? Or in the passionate evangelical "General" William Booth of the Salvation Army? What possible connections could there be between Shaw, the passionate socialist, and the Tory Winston Churchill, who seemed to represent everything Shaw should have rejected and despised? In Shaw's People, noted Shaw scholar Stanley Weintraub explores the relationships between Shaw and twelve of his contemporaries, including Queen Victoria, Oscar Wilde, H. L. Mencken, James Joyce, and Winston Churchill. Weintraub chose these individuals as lenses through which to look at Shaw but also for the ways in which their lives are illuminated through their often paradoxical relationships with Shaw. While Shaw never met Queen Victoria, his sovereign during the first forty-five years of his life, the degree of her influence is apparent in Shaw's reference to himself, in his ninth decade, as "an old Victorian." Weintraub explores those in the literary world who interacted with Shaw, such as H. L. Mencken, one of Shaw's earliest American fans, who turned against his hero at the peak of his translatlantic reputation, and James Joyce, who was loath to confess his respect for his fellow Irishman. He investigates the curious mutual admiration between Shaw and W. B. Yeats and Shaw's championing of Oscar Wilde despite the vast difference in their lifestyles. Weintraub's skillful investigation of each of these twelve relationships illuminates a different facet of Shaw, from his pre-dramatist years in London through the close of his long life.

This is the first comprehensive annotated bibliography of works by and about Bernard Shaw. No book has appeared before that has surveyed all of the research and writing that the life and work of Bernard Shaw have evoked. The greatest dramaturgist in English after Shakespeare, Shaw was one of the dominant public figures of his time, a long lifetime (1856-1950) that began in the mid-Victorian period and extended into the Atomic Age. Inevitably, someone who straddled his age so visibly and so memorably, and whose works retain a continuing fascination, has been the subject of thousands of articles and hundreds of books, from criticism of individual works to multivolume biographies, editions, and studies. Stanley Weintraub has distilled his forty years of experience of Shaw studies to bring them into useful focus and sort out the significant writings from the burgeoning mass of publications. This book is an essential tool for both scholars and general readers interested in the multifarious world of Shaw. Readers will not only find out what has been done, but what still remains to be accomplished in Shaw studies; what Shaw's influence has been on other writers; even where Shaw has appeared as a character in other writers' poetry, fiction, and drama.

A Sunday Times Best Book of the Year: The “informative and entertaining” first major biography of the trailblazing, controversial children’s author (The Washington Post). Born in 1858, Edith Nesbit is today considered the first modern writer for children and the inventor of the children’s adventure story. In The Life and Loves of E. Nesbit, award-winning biographer Eleanor Fitzsimons uncovers the little-known details of her life, introducing readers to the Fabian Society cofounder and fabulous socialite who hosted legendary parties and had admirers by the dozen, including George Bernard Shaw. Through Nesbit’s letters and archival research, Fitzsimons reveals “E.” to have been a prolific lecturer and writer on socialism and shows how Nesbit incorporated these ideas into her writing, thereby influencing a generation of children—an aspect of her literary legacy never before examined. Fitzsimons’s riveting biography brings new light to the life and works of this remarkable writer and woman. “Meticulous and invaluable...exceptionally illuminating and detailed.” —The Wall Street Journal “Fitzsimons handily reassembles the hundreds of intricate, idiosyncratic parts of the miraculous E. Nesbit machine.” —The New York Times Book Review “I’ve always loved the work of E. Nesbit—The Railway Children and Five Children and It are my favorites—but I knew nothing about the extraordinary, surprising life of this great figure in children’s literature . . . so gripping that I read [it] in two days.” —Gretchen Rubin, #1 New York Times-bestsellingauthor of The Happiness Project “A charming, lively, and old-fashioned biography . . . highly readable.” —Publishers Weekly “A terrific book.” —Neil Gaiman