from SHAW 1 (1981)

John R. Pfeiffer

 A CONTINUING CHECKLIST OF SHAVIANA

I. Works by Shaw

Shaw, Bernard. Arms and the Man, in Bernard Shaw, Early Texts: Play Manuscripts in Facsi­mile series. Introduction by Norma Jenckes. New York: Garland; for issue in 1981. Reviewed in next volume.

. Caesar and Cleopatra. See The Man of Destiny below.

. Candida and How He Lied to Her Husband, in Bernard Shaw, Early Texts: Play Manuscripts in Facsimile series. Introduction by _l. Percy Smith. New York: Garland; for issue in 1981. Reviewed in next volume.

. Captain Brassbound's Conversion, in Bernard Shaw, Early Texts: Play Manuscripts in Facsimile series. Introduction by Rodelle Weintraub. New York: Garland; for issue in 1981. Reviewed in next volume.

. The Collected Screenplays of Bernard Shaw. Edited with an introduction by Bernard Dukore. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1980. Reviewed in next volume.

. The Devil's Disciple, in Bernard Shaw, Early Texts: Play Manuscripts in Facsimile series. Introduction by Robert F. Whitman. New York: Garland; for issue in 1981. Re­viewed in next volume.

. The Doctor's Dilemma, in Bernard Shaw, Early Texts: Play Manuscripts in Facsimile series. Introduction by Margery M. Morgan. New York: Garland; for issue in 1981. Reviewed in next volume.

. Excerpts and photocopy samples of letters and postcards to Molly Tompkins, in Fine Books & Autograph Letters, auction sale catalogue of Southeby Parke Bernet Inc.; sale date: October 1, 1980. Advertises a collection of "about 48 autograph letters signed, 25 typed letters signed (many with long autograph additions) and 47 auto­graph postcards signed, c. 170 pages, Adelphi Terrace, Whitehall Court, Ayot St. Lawrence, and elsewhere, 27 December 1921 to 26 March 1949. Includes photocopy of September 1945 autographed photo of GBS, and a May 1, 1932, autograph letter quipping about dogs, parrots and a play by Lawrence. The collection, "with a few unimportant exceptions" was issued as To a Young Actress, edited by Peter Tompkins, New York, 1960.

1. Professor Pfeiffer, SHAW Bibliographer, welcomes information about new or forthcoming Shaviana: books, articles, pamphlets, monographs, dissertations, reprints, etc. His address is Department of English, Central Michigan University, Mount Pleasant, Michigan 48859.

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. Excerpts from a February 2, 1905, letter to Mr. John Hodge, in sale catalogue #1030 of Francis Edwards Limited, London, 1980. Four pages mostly on political topics, from Adelphi Terrace.

. Heartbreak House, in Bernard Shaw, Early Texts: Play Manuscripts in Facsimile series. Introduction by Stanley Weintraub and Anne Wright. New York: Garland; for issue in 1981. Reviewed in next volume.

. How He Lied to Her Husband. See Candida above.

. Major Barbara, in Bernard Shaw, Early Texts: Play Manuscripts in Facsimile series. Introduction by Bernard F. Dukore. New York: Garland; for issue in 1981. Re­viewed in next volume.

. The Man of Destiny and Caesar and Cleopatra, in Bernard Shaw, Early Texts: Play Manuscripts in Facsimile series. Introduction by J. L. Wisenthal. New York: Garland; for issue in 1981. Reviewed in next volume.

. Mrs Warren's Profession, in Bernard Shaw, Early Texts: Play Manuscripts in Facsimile series. Introduction by Margot Peters. New York: Garland; for issue in 1981. Re­viewed in next volume.

. The Philanderer, in Bernard Shaw, Early Texts: Play Manuscripts in Facsimile series. Introduction by Julius Novick. New York: Garland; for issue in 1981. Reviewed in next volume.

. Widowers' Houses, in Bernard Shaw, Early Texts: Play Manuscripts in Facsimile series. Introduction by Jerald E. Bringle. New York: Garland; for issue in 1981. Reviewed in next volume.

. You Never Can Tell, in Bernard Shaw, Early Texts: Play Manuscripts in Facsimile series. Introduction by Daniel J. Leary. New York: Garland; for issue in 1981. Re­viewed in next volume.

II. Books and Pamphlets

Burns, Morris U. The Dramatic Criticism of Alexander Woollcott. Metuchen, New Jersey: Scarecrow Press, 1980. A widely read drama critic from 1914 to 1943, Woollcott reviewed at least nineteen of GBS's plays-some of them several times. Notes and appendices list all of the reviews. In a three-page analysis, "George Bernard Shaw," Burns notes Woollcott's admiration for Shaw's wit and ability to "invigorate his audi­ences intellectually." He criticized Shaw for prolixity, poor play construction, mixing of moods, and lack of universality. Shaw's best play was Candida. He felt GBS in the early twenties was one of the three best contemporary playwrights-with Barrie and O'Neill.

Dukore, Bernard F. Money & Politics in Ibsen, Shaw and Brecht. Columbia and London: University of Missouri Press, 1980. Reviewed in this volume.

Fisher, Lois H. A Literary Gazetteer of England. New York: McGraw Hill, 1980. The index lists two dozen places associated with Shaw, including his country home at Ayot St. Lawrence, Hertfordshire, where he did not write Saint ,Joan, though the entry says so. The entry for Buckfastleigh, Devon, tells of GBS's visit to the Bene­dictine monastery there and his tour of the abbey with a scholarly Belgian monk. "The two men debated the merits of the Authorized and Douai Versions of the Bible, with the monk arguing that the Authorized was by far the better. So deeply impressed was Shaw that when he departed, he stuffed the building fund box with treasury notes."

Fussell, Paul. Abroad. British Traveling Between the Wars. Oxford, 1980. Several references to Shaw but gives him surprisingly little attention, given GBS's globe-trotting (liter-

A CONTINUING CHECKLIST OF SHAVIANA                     257

ally) between the wars, and the impact of it on his plays (Too True, Simpleton, Buoyant Billions, for example).

Gielgud, John, with Miller, John and Powell, John. Gielgud, an Actor and His Time. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1980. Issued in U.K. as An Actor and His Time, 1979. There are a number of spot references to GBS and a three-page account of his knowledge and opinion of Shaw, including a missed chance to play Caesar in the film version, his parts in Saint Joan, Doctor's Dilemma, Androcles, Dark Lady, and (as Shot­over) Heartbreak, his preference to read or see the plays produced rather than to act in them, his missed opportunities to meet GBS more than the single time he did so, and his admiration for Shaw's personal character as well has his sympathy with Shaw's difficulty in the Mrs. Patrick Campbell affair.

Gribben, Alan. Mark Twain's Library. A Reconstruction. Two volumes. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1980. Shaw is indexed in Volume II. Items are John Bull's Other Island, Constable & Co., 1907 (inferred from Isabel Lyon's enthusiasm over the work), and "Plays" writ­ten in Clara Clemens' mostly undated commonplace book. (Probably Plays, Pleasant and Unpleasant.)

Ingle, Stephen. Socialist Thought in Imaginative Literature. Totowa, New Jersey: Rowman Littlefield, 1979. Numerous substantial references to Shaw, including the following pieces: Methuselah, Caesar, Candida, Everybody's Political What's What, Heartbreak, John Bull, Major Barbara, Superman, Mrs Warren, On the Rocks, Apple Cart, Dilemma, and Widowers' Houses. An energetic assembly of the Shaw/socialism connection, Ingle's discussion cautions that while GBS was generally an advocate, he was not a funda­mentalist. He did not want rule by the masses, and did not believe that the wisdom for a good socialism would arise from the populations bred in capitalism.

Johnston, Brian. To the Third Empire. Ibsen's Early Drama. Minneapolis-St. Paul: University of Minnesota Press, 1980. Analysis in depth of the plays which preceded the better­known social dramas. Makes some sweeping judgments involving Shaw along the way. Love's Comedy needs only directorial "brio" to be "as dramatically delightful as Getting Married." Also, Shaw was to repeat Ibsen's concept of hell as fashionable society (in The Pretenders) in Man and Superman, "but Ibsen's expression of this idea is ever more forceful."

Oehlschlaeger, Fritz and Hendrick, George, eds. Toward the Making of Thoreau's Modern Reputation. Selected Correspondence of S. A. Jones, A. W. Hosmer, H. S. Salt, H. G. O. Blake, and D. Ricketson. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1979. From a June 9, 1892, Henry Salt letter to S. A. Jones: "Bernard Shaw, whose name you may possibly have heard in connection with the Fabian Society, has also been here. He published a book on Ibsen ("The Quintessence of Ibsenism") a few months ago, which I believe was reprinted in America. He & [Edward] Carpenter are as unlike as possible in temperament, & yet they seem to be arriving at the same conclusions by different routes. . . ."

Rogers, Will. Will Rogers' Daily Telegrams. Volume III. The Hoover Years: 1931-1933. Edited by James M. Smallwood. Stillwater, Oklahoma: Oklahoma State University Press, 1979. This third volume of a four-volume collection of the "Telegrams" pub­lished as Rogers' newspaper column from 1926 to 1935, seems typical of his treat­ment of GBS. Here Shaw is mentioned six times, most often in connection with Lady Astor and the trip to Russia. Twice Rogers puts Shaw's name in the column title: "Will Rogers Sees Influence of a Woman on Bernard Shaw" (October 23, 1931); "Mr. Rogers Has a Plan to Win Kind Words from G. B. Shaw" (January 10, 1933). In retrospect, at least, the contents of the "Telegrams" seem trivial and bland.

Silver, Arnold. Bernard Shaw, The Darker Side. From Stanford University Press prepublica­tion notice; promised for 1981.

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                         JOHN R. PFEIFFER

 

 

 

III. Periodicals

 

Calill, Carmen. "Virago Reprints: Redressing the Balance." TLS (September 12, 1980), 1001. Calill speaks on behalf of the Virago publishing venture to reprint a series of novels. "I longed to put a bomb under Leavis's agonizingly narrow selection of `great' novelists." Among these reprints is GBS's Unsocial Socialist, nominated for the series and provided with an introduction by Michael Holroyd. See in this connection the uncomplimentary review by John Lucas, TLS (May 23, 1980), noted in the Septem­ber 1980 Shaw Review Checklist.

Collini, Stefan. "The Fabian Fringe Thinker." TLS (July 25, 1980), 837-38. Review of Terence B. Qualter's Graham Wallace and the Great Society.

Tobias, Richard C. "Shaw" in "Victorian Bibliography for 1979." Victorian Studies, 23, No. 4 (Summer 1980), 603-4. A selected list of twelve entries, two not in past Shaw Review Checklists.