SHAVINGS 14

June 2003

Transferred to www.oscholars.com with minor revisions December 2008

The Associate Editor of THE OSCHOLARS with responsibility for helping with this issue of SHAVINGS was Julie A. Sparks of the Department of English, University of Arkansas-Monticello.

‘Oh, Shaw! That’s the man who smokes Jaeger cigarettes!’
– Oscar Wilde, quoted by Richard Le Gallienne: The Romantic Nineties.
New edition. London: Putnam & Co 1951.p.81

Note: Subscribers to this Journal have their names printed in bold, and can be contacted through us at oscholars@gmail.com.

Click for the last issue of Shavings (May 2003); click for the Table of Contents of this issue; click to return to the Shavings home page.

1. The Plays

2. Shawlines

3. A Shaw Anthology : Echoes of Oscar

4. Bibliographies and Links

5. Shaw Associations

6. Tailpiece

1. The Plays

In this section we shall try to cover productions of Shaw’s pre-1901 plays, and news of productions of these (with offers of review) will be most welcome. The plays are Arms and the Man (1894), Cæsar and Cleopatra (1898), Candida (1895), Captain Brassbound’s Conversion (1899), The Devil’s Disciple (1897), The Man of Destiny (1895), Mrs Warren’s Profession (1893), The Philanderer (1893), Widowers’ Houses (1892), You Never Can Tell (1895). (Dates of composition, not first performance.) Wilde is known to have attended the first night of Arms and the Man (20th April 1894).

The Shaw Season at Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, has been announced. The plays for 2003 will be Widowers’ Houses (15th May to 4th October) and Misalliance (10th April to 2nd November) .

Mrs Warren’s Profession

This is the Peter Hall Production, reviewed for us when in London by Joseph Donohue (University of Massachusetts, Amherst). Barbara Blethyn is succeeded as Mrs Warren by Twiggy Lawson. It is now touring as follows:

Malvern Theatres (and The Cinema, Forum Theatre, Festival Theatre), Malvern
2nd June to 7th June

Theatre Royal (and Ustinov Studio), Bath
16th June to 21st June

Regent Theatre
Stoke-on-Trent
23rd June to 28th June

Richmond Theatre
Richmond
30th June to 5th July

Mrs Warren	Twiggy Lawson
Vivie Warren	Hannah Yelland
George Crofts	Jeremy Clyde
Praed	Benedick Blythe
Rev Samuel Gardner	Mike Burnside
Frank	Ryan Kiggell
Director	Sir Peter Hall
Design	John Gunter

Twentieth Century clippings:

After opening in Pittsburgh on 5th June, the Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre will be taking a production of Major Barbara, directed by Matt O’Brien, to Ireland and playing at the Galway Arts Festival and the Pavilion Theatre in Dún Laoghaire (29th July to 16th August). Daniel J. Travanti is playing Undershaft, quaintly described in the Pavilion Theatre’s brochure as a ‘millionaire arts dealer’.

The current London run of My Fair Lady will close on 30th August.

Michael Friend has staged a number of Shaw’s plays at Shaw’s Corner, Ayot St Lawrence. Full details of all the productions, cast lists, photographs, and touring plans for 2003, can be found at Error! Hyperlink reference not valid..

Saint Joan will be produced in July. Adam Bampton-Smith, Lottie Bovingdon, Simon Evison, Phil Gerrard, Moira Opazo, Roger Ringrose, Peter Saracen.

2. Shawlines

In this section we will print all the news that we find or, better still, are sent. We especially welcome news of Shaw on curricula.

We also wish to record articles and papers relating to the earlier Shaw, and news of new editions of Cashel Byron’s Profession (1886), An Unsocial Socialist (1887), The Quintessence of Ibsenism (1891), The Perfect Wagnerite (1898), Love Among the Artists (1900), as well as other related material.

On 16th May The Bernard Shaw Society in New York presented scenes from Lady Windermere’s Fan, directed and produced by Thomas Luce Summa with actors from the Heritage Theatre. Brief excerpts from Shaw’s reviews of Wilde’s plays preceded the performance. We regret we learned of this too late for inclusion in the May edition of SHAVINGS, and thank those readers who alerted us it.

At the the American Conference for Irish Studies 4th-7th June, Nelson O’Ceallaigh Ritschel (Massachusetts Maritime Academy ) is giving a paper on ‘J. M. Synge and the Rewriting of G. B. Shaw: The Playboy’.

Shaw’s Corner at Ayot St Lawrence re-opened for the season on 2nd April. It can be contacted at shawscorner@nationaltrust.org.uk

The Shaw Birthplace in Dublin re-opens on the 1st May. It can be contacted at shawhouse@dublintourism.ie

ANNOUNCING THE ‘INTERNATIONAL SHAW SOCIETY’

Richard Dietrich writes

This is to announce the founding of the ‘International Shaw Society’ (ISS) and to invite your participation.

This is the story. On August 24th 2002, 21 people gathered at a ‘Shaw Summit’ at The Shaw Festival in Niagara--on--the--Lake, Ontario, and at the conclusion of a three--hour meeting, which I chaired, we agreed to the formation in principle of the ‘International Shaw Society,’ which will provide a means for those interested in the life, times, and career of Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw to organize their activities and interests and exchange information. We also agreed to meet again at the same place about a year hence and to invite anyone else interested to attend.

Please consider this a formal invitation to meet with us
at 9:30 a.m. in the
Market Room of the Court House (ground floor) in Niagara--on--the--Lake, Ontario, on
August 20th, 2003.

Our principal task between now and next August 20th is to establish a database of addresses. If you are interested in joining us, please fill out the poll form below, print it out, apply scissors, and return it to the address below as soon as possible (or just copy and paste it into a fresh e-mail). You may have to save it to your hard drive first.

For the time being, the ISS will operate as an informal, voluntary, non--dues--paying organization, but the chief item on the August 20th agenda will be to decide whether the ISS should or should not become a legally--incorporated, dues--paying, not--for--profit organization.

Regardless of whether the ISS is incorporated or not, at the August 20th meeting we will attempt to arrive at bylaws and procedures and elect officers and committees. Until then, we will be guided by two starter committees: our Steering Committee (Alan Andrews, Leonard Conolly, Bernard Dukore, Anthony Ellis, John Pfeiffer, Gale Larson, Lagretta Lenker, Michel Pharand, Julie Sparks, Rodelle Weintraub, Don Wilmeth, and myself, Dick Dietrich) and our Advisory Board (Sidney Albert, Ronald Bryden, Charles A. Carpenter, T. F. Evans, Dan H. Laurence, Barry Morse, Rhoda Nathan, and Stan Weintraub).

We hope to see you at the August 20th meeting (details to be announced in July). In the meantime, please take a look at the ISS website at http://chuma.cas.usf.edu/ ~dietrich/iss.htm and give us feedback on it.

Now, please copy, paste, print and fill out the form below and send it by snail mail to the address below or copy and paste it into a return e-mail. Thank you.

Richard F. Dietrich Chair, ISS Steering Committee

R. F. Dietrich
English Department
University of South Florida
Tampa, FL 33620

PHONE: (813) 974--4025 or 920--2986. FAX: (813) 926--9814
E-MAIL: dietrich@chuma1.cas.usf.edu
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

POLL OF INTEREST IN THE ‘INTERNATIONAL SHAW SOCIETY’

NAME:

ADDRESS:

PHONE #:

E-MAIL ADDRESS:

INSTITUTIONAL AFFILIATIONS:

Please list other people who might be interested in the ISS that you think might have been overlooked in our mailing and, if possible, include their addresses (email preferred). If you know of anyone interested in Shaw who has not received this announcement, please pass it on.

Will you be attending the August 20th meeting at the Shaw Festival in Ontario? (Yes No Maybe)
(1/16/03)

Please feel free to print out and copy this form, and please post it where it will do the most good and/or distribute it to whomever you think might be interested (such as graduate students in English and Theater). Thank you, again.

SHAW IN THE HERE AND NOW

This is to announce a Shaw Conference on 17th-21st March, 2004, at the University of South Florida in Sarasota, Florida, and to issue a call for papers. The conference topic is ‘Shaw in the Here and Now.’

Deadline for Abstracts: 1st October. Cash prizes for Best Papers by Students. Deadline for Student Papers: 1st December.

The conference will be headquartered at the Hilton Garden Inn, near the Bradenton-Sarasota Airport and just north of the USF at Sarasota campus.

Paper sessions and panel discussions will take place on the campus.

Play productions, such as THE MILLIONAIRESS, ARMS AND THE MAN, BERNARD AND BOSIE (starring Barry Morse), and perhaps one more, will take place there or at the nearby Asolo Theatre.

Everything is within walking distance.

For details and explanations, please visit the conference website at

http://chuma.cas.usf.edu/~dietrich/USFShawConference2004-Sarasota/index.html

You can print out the registration form there and mail it in. Any questions not answered there please direct to Richard Dietrich at dietrich@chuma1.cas.usf.edu or to his co-director Lagretta Lenker at llenker@admin.usf.edu

It is also possible to register online with a credit card. Just go to or click on the following address and follow the instructions: https://registration.outreach.usf.edu/shaw.htm

The conference brochure and call for papers can be printed off and copies and posters made at:

http://chuma.cas.usf.edu/~dietrich/USFShawConferenceBrochure.htm.pdf.

This requires Acrobat Reader to open.

. . .UPDATES WILL BE PUBLISHED HERE. . .

The Dublin Writers Museum will hold an exhibition devoted to Shaw and to Sean O’Casey throughout March 2004. If any readers have memorabilia that they are willing to lend, under the usual guarantees of security, insurance and proper curatorial care, please contact us.

3. A Shaw Anthology

Echoes of Oscar

‘It is almost incredible that Oscar’s essays and novels and dramas should not have had an effect upon the mind and conceptions of a man like Shaw’. – H.M. Hyndman: Further Reminiscences. London: Macmillan 1912 p.221.

Candida

In Candida, we find a number of references that draw us back to Wilde, not least in the two leading male characters, the Revd James Mavor Morell and Eugene Marchbanks. Morell (like the Revd Stewart Headlam, who went bail for Wilde, and is referred in the stage directions towards the beginning of Act I) is a Christian Socialist, but he also has something of a physical resemblance to Wilde at the height of his powers:

A vigorous, genial, popular man of forty, robust and goodlooking, full of energy, with pleasant, hearty considerate manners [. . .] with a wide range and command of expression [ . . .] His well-spring of enthusiasm and sympathetic emotion has never run dry for a moment [. . . ] pardonably vain of his powers and unconsciously pleased with himself [. . .] good forehead [. . .] eyes bright and eager, mouth resolute but not particularly well cut [. . .]

Morell’s books include Henry George’s Progress and Poverty,Fabian Essays (to which GBS himself contributed), Morris’s A Dream of John Ball, Marx’s Capital ‘and half a dozen literary landmarks in Socialism’. One would be hard put in 1898 to name half a dozen literary landmarks in Socialism that did not include Wilde’s The Soul of Man. His admiration for his wife Candida, ‘a good woman’, is that of Robert for Gertrude Chiltern (although Candida’s admiration for James is exactly the reverse of that of Gertrude for Robert). He also expresses himself aphoristically, although, as so often with Shaw, one feels that Wilde would have been less sententious: ‘We have no more right to consume happiness without producing than to consume wealth without producing it’. We are told that he has addressed the Women’s Liberal Federation on the theme of the Woman Question [Lady Chiltern: I have just come from the Woman’s Liberal Association, where, by the way, Robert, your name was received with loud applause]. Candida can also express herself aphoristically ‘How conventional all you unconventional people are!’ (cp. Lord Windermere: How hard good women are! Lady Windermere: How weak bad men are!)

But it is Morell’s foil, the poet Marchbanks, who steps out of the world of the Rhymer’s Club and the Café Royal. The nephew of an earl (and Eugene of course means well-born, while Marchbanks, in its form ‘Marjoribanks’, was the family name of Lord Tweedmouth), he is ‘a strange, shy youth of eighteen, slight, effeminate, with a delicate childish voice, and a hunted tormented expression and shrinking manner that shew the painful sensitiveness of very swift and accurate apprehensiveness [. . . .] Miserably irresolute, he does not know where to stand or what to do [. . .] His nostrils, mouth, and eyes betray a fiercely petulant wilfulness’. It is not difficult to give a queer reading to this description, nor to discern there something of ‘Bosie’ Douglas. We do not get much of his poetry, but we are given too understand that he is an 1890s æsthete when he says to Candida that he should to give her ‘a boat; a tiny shallop to sail away in, far from the world, where the marble floors are washed by the rain and dried by the sun; wherre the south wind dusts the beautiful green and purple carpets. Or a chariot! to carry us up into the sky, where the lamps are stars.’ This is not Marchbanks’ only æsthetic conceit: the phrase ‘Let me go now. The night outside grows impatient’ is very Wildëan.

This strikes Morell as all too high-falutin’, but Candida reminds Morell that Marchbanks cleans the household’s boots (Marchbanks: ‘Oh don’t talk about boots! Your feet should be beautiful on the mountains’), and it will be recalled that Constance Wilde is said to have interrupted a poetic discourse of Oscar’s by referring to Cyril’s boots. It is not necessary to believe that she did so (Vyvyan Holland poured scorn on the notion), but it may have been an ill-natured on dit at the time, unless the story was a much later fabrication by Frank Harris. The text and and the anecdote may be at least be read together; just as one cannot learn Morell’s uncommon middle name without recalling Sidney Mavor, who once spent the night with Wilde at the Albemarle Hotel.

Morell’s secretary is called Proserpine Garnett (‘a brisk little woman of the lower middle class’), and acts to some extent as raisonneuse. Addressed as Miss Prossy, she may be a younger incarnation of Miss Prism, who also has a pretentious classical first name, Letitia. Shaw likes to play these little games with names: one thinks of ‘Rummy’ Mitchens, the broken down old woman in Major Barbara, who was named after George Eliot’s Romola.

Major Barbara

There is some scope for discussing ‘the most marvellous of all gospels, the gospel of gold’, as expounded by Baron Arnheim to dazzle Robert Chiltern, and its use by Andrew Undershaft. Wildëan echoes are frequent in Major Barbara.

. . .

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Believe me, Mrs. Cheveley, it is a swindle. Let us call things by their proper names.
-- An Ideal Husband, Act I

UNDERSHAFT: Pooh, Professor! let us call things by their proper names.
-- Major Barbara, Act II

. . .

‘I know how people chatter in England. The middle classes air their moral prejudices over their gross dinner-tables, and whisper about what they call the profligacies of their betters in order to try and pretend that they are in smart society and on intimate terms with the people they slander.’ (Dorian Gray speaking)

-- The Picture of Dorian Gray

LADY BRITOMART: ‘It is only in the middle classes that people get in a state of dumb helpless horror when they find that there are wicked people in the world.

-- Major Barbara, Act II

‘Modern morality consists in accepting the standard of one’s age. I consider that for any man of culture to accept the standard of his age is a form of the grossest immorality.’ (Lord Henry Wotton speaking)

-- The Picture of Dorian Gray

MRS CHEVELEY: Nowadays, with our modern mania for morality, every one has to pose as a paragon of purity, incorruptibility, and all the other seven deadly virtues.

-- An Ideal Husband, Act I

CECIL GRAHAM: But scandal is gossip made tedious by morality. Now, I never moralise. A man who moralises is usually a hypocrite, and a woman who moralises is invariably plain.

-- Lady Windermere’s Fan, Act II

LADY BRITOMART: Just as one doesnt mind men practising immorality so long as they own they are in the wrong by preaching morality; so I couldn’t forgive Andrew for preaching immorality while practising morality.

-- Major Barbara, Act I

. . .

GERALD: Mother, this is Lord Illingworth, who has offered to take me as his private secretary. It is a wonderful opening for me, isn’t it?
-- A Woman of No Importance, Act II

LADY BRACKNELL: I have always been of opinion that a man who desires to get married should know either everything or nothing. Which do you know?

JACK: I know nothing, Lady Bracknell.
--The Importance of being Earnest, Act I

UNDERSHAFT: He knows nothing and thinks he knows everything. That points to a political career. Get him a private secretaryship to some one who can get him an Under Secretaryship.

-- Major Barbara, Act III

. . .

LADY BRACKNELL: What is your income?
JACK: Between seven and eight thousand a year.
--The Importance of being Earnest, Act I

LADY BRITOMART: You know how poor my father he is: he has barely seven thousand a year now; and really, if he were not the Earl of Stevenage, he would have to give up society.

-- Major Barbara, Act I

. . .

One should also note that the career of Adolphus Cusins in Major Barbara turns on his being a foundling, while the future of Jack Worthing turns on his not being one.

JACK: It is a terrible thing for a man to find out suddenly that all his life he has been speaking nothing but the truth.
--The Importance of being Earnest, Act III

‘Make any statement that is so true that it has been staring us in the face all our lives, and the whole world will rise up and contradict you.’

-- Too True to be Good, Act II.

Letters

ALGERNON: I wish you would reform me. You might make that your mission.
CECILY: How dare you suggest that I have a mission?
ALGERNON: I beg your pardon: but I thought every woman had a mission of some kind, nowadays.
CECILY: Every female has! No woman.
--The Importance of being Earnest, Act II

‘No fascinating woman ever wants to emancipate her sex’
-- G.B.S. to Clement Scott, January 1902

Cashel Byron’s Profession

Cashel Byron’s Profession was written some years before the greater part of Wilde’s work was undertaken, but it reveals how Shaw was also dipping into the same pool as Wilde. Here is Lydia Carew on railway trains:

A train is a beautiful thing. Its pure white fleece of steam harmonises with every variety of landscape.

This was said at Clapham Junction, where in November 1895 Wilde had other things on his mind.

Cashel Byron’s Profession also has a prominent character called Lord Worthington. Had it been written ten years later we would have seized on this compound of John Worthing and Lord Darlington, just as Wilde’s Lady Roxton and Lady Plymdale seem to combine in Shaw’s Lady Roxdale (Widowers’ Houses). Byron goes to a ‘scholastic establishment for the sons of gentlemen’ called Moncrief House.

Man and Superman

John Cooper draws our attention to the following:

In this world there are two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. The last is much the worst.
Lady Windermere’s Fan, Act 3.

There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart’s desire. The other is to gain it.
Man and Superman, Act 4.

4. Bibliographies & Links

GBS for Wildeans: A Bibliography of 19th century Shaw.

This will be a cumulative bibliography as references come to hand.

Beerbohm, Max: Around Theatres. London: Rupert Hart-Davis 1953.

This carries reviews of plays published in the Saturday Review, namely The Devil’s Disciple (‘"G.B.S." at Kennington’, 7th October 1899, pp.38-41; and the 1907 revival ‘Mr. Vedrenne’, 26th October 1907, pp.481-4); You Never Can Tell (12th May 1900, pp.78-9); the 1901 reprint of Cashel Byron’s Profession (‘A Cursory Conspectus of G.B.S.’, 2nd November 1901, pp.171-5); Mrs Warren’s Profession (‘Mr Shaw’s Tragedy’, 1st February 1902, pp. 191-5); the 1907 revival of The Philanderer (9th February 1907 pp.449-51); and the 1908 revival of Arms and the Man (4th January 1908, pp.491-3). There is also a review of the published edition of Three Plays for Puritans (The Devil’s Disciple, Cæsar and Cleopatra and Captain Brassbound’s Conversion) (‘Mr Shaw Crescent’, 26th January 1901, pp. 118-22).

Outside our current range are reviews of The Doctors’ Dilemma, Getting Married, John Bull’s Other Island, Major Barbara, Man and Superman, Misalliance, and Pygmalion.

Beerbohm, Max: More Theatres. London: Rupert Hart-Davis 1969. This volume contains Beerbohm’s pieces for the Saturday Review that he omitted from the first edition of Around Theatres (1924), an omission followed in the 1953 edition.

This volume opens with three squibs against Shaw ‘G.B.S. Oblige’ (9th April 1898, pp.17-21), ‘Mr Shaw’s Profession’ (14th May 1898, pp.21-4) and ‘Mr Shaw’s Profession II’ (pp.25-7, 21st May 1898). These contain allusions to Arms and the Man (p.25), Candida (p.26), Mrs Warren’s Profession (pp.21-4, 25), Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant (p.11), The Devil’s Disciple (pp.21, 335), The Philanderer (p.21), Widowers’ Houses (21, 25), You Never Can Tell (pp.25, 26).

There are further references to Mrs Warren’s Profession (p70), Arms and the Man (p267), Cæsar & Cleopatra (p.271).

The volume also contains a review of Captain Brassbound’s Conversion (29th December 1900, pp.335-7). From beyond our period is The Admirable Bashville (pp.580-2).

Borsa, Mario: The English Stage of To-day. Translated from the original Italian and edited with a prefatory note by Selwyn Brinton M.A. London: John Lane The Bodley Head 1908. This has one chapter on Shaw.

Chapter IV: G.B.S.

Boyd, Ernest A.: Appreciations and Depreciations, Irish Literary Portraits. Dublin: Talbot Press & London: T. Fisher Unwin 1919. This has one chapter on Shaw.

Chapter V: An Irish Protestant, Bernard Shaw.

Innes, Christopher (ed.): The Cambridge Companion to George Bernard Shaw. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1998. This contains four essays on the younger Shaw:

Gordon, David J.: Shavian Comedy and the Shadow of Wilde;
Kelly, Katherine E.: Imprinting the Stage: Shaw and the Publishing Trade 1883-1903;
Marker, Frederick J.: Shaw’s early plays;
Powell, Kerry: New Women, new plays, and Shaw in the 1890s.

Jackson, Holbrook: The Eighteen Nineties. 1913. Pelican Books 1939. This contains a chapter devoted to Shaw.

Chapter XIV: Enter G.B.S.

Kennedy, J.M. English Literature 1880-1905. London: Stephen Swift 1912. This contains one chapter on Shaw.

Chapter VI: George Bernard Shaw.

Laurence, Dan H.: Bernard Shaw, Collected Letters 1874-1897. London: Max Reinhardt 1965.

Laurence, Dan H.: Bernard Shaw, Collected Letters 1898-1910. London: Max Reinhardt 1972.

Meisel, Martin: Shaw and the Nineteenth Century Theater. Princeton University Press 1963; new edition New York: Limelight Editions 1984 ISBN 0-87910-017-6.

Morgan, A.L.: Tendencies of Modern English Drama. London: Constable 1924. This contains three chapters on Shaw:

Chapter VI. Shaw the Iconoclast--Dramatic Iconoclast
Chapter VII: Shaw the Iconoclast--Social Iconoclast
Chapter VIII: Shaw the Philosopher.

-- and covering a later period than the pre-1901 Shaw, the following should be mentioned:

Hyde, Mary (ed.): Bernard Shaw and Alfred Douglas, A Correspondence. London: John Murray 1982.

Weintraub, Stanley (ed.): The Playwright and the Pirate, Bernard Shaw and Frank Harris, A Correspondence. Pittsburgh: Pennsylvania State University Press and Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1982.

This covers not only Harris’s ‘biography’ of Shaw but the attempts of Harris to involve Shaw in his book on Wilde. The first letter in this collection is Harris to Shaw 30th November 1898. The second (Shaw to Harris 4th November 1900) gives Shaw’s views on Mr and Mrs Daventry. There is one more letter from this period (Shaw to Harris 16th December 1900); the correspondence resumes in December 1904.

The following bring together Shaw and Wilde:

Bader, Earl Delbert: ‘The Self-Reflexive Language: uses of Paradox in Wilde, Shaw and Chesterton .’ Ph. D. dissertation. Indiana University 1962.

Beckson, Karl: ‘Oscar Wilde’s Celebrated Remark on Bernard Shaw.’ Notes and Queries 41(239): 3 Oxford 1994.

Gollin, Richard M.: ‘Beerbohm, Wilde, Shaw and "The Good-Natured Critic".’ Bulletin of the New York Public Library 68, New York February 1964.

Harris, Frank: Oscar Wilde, including My Memories of Oscar Wilde by George Beranrd Shaw. Carroll: New York 1997.

Harris, Frank: Oscar Wilde: His Life & Confessions, with memories of Oscar Wilde by Bernard Shaw and Criticisms by Robert Ross. The author, 2nd edition, the first with the pieces by Shaw and Ross. New York 1918.

Harris, Frank: Oscar Wilde: His Life & Confessions. Together with Memories of Wilde by Bernard Shaw. The author. London 1918.

Harris, Frank: Oscar Wilde: His Life & Confessions. Together with Memories of Wilde by Bernard Shaw. New York: Crown Publishing Co. 1930.

Hill, John Edward: ‘Dialectical Æstheticism — Essays on the Criticism of Swinburne, Pater, Wilde, James, Shaw and Yeats’. University of Virginia Thesis Virginia 1972.

Jordan, John: ‘Shaw, Wilde, Synge and Yeats: Ideas, Epigrams, Blackberries and Chassis’ Wolfhound in The Irish Mind; Exploring Intellectual Traditions Dublin 1985.

Koritz, Amy E.: ‘Gendering Bodies, Performing Art: Theatrical Dancing and the Performance Æsthetics of Wilde, Shaw & Yeats’. Dissertation Abstracts International 50 : 3 [North Carolina 1988] Ann Arbor 1989.

Lee, Josephine D.: ‘Language & Action in the Plays of Wilde, Shaw & Stoppard.’ Dissertation Abstracts International 48 : 7 Ann Arbor 1988.

Livermore, Ann: ‘Goldoni, Wilde and Shaw: Co-Inventors of Comedy.’ Revue de la Littérature Comparée 53
pp.108-24 1979.

Loughney, Martin: Springs of Irish Wisdom: Shaw, Wilde, Swift, Yeats. Dublin: Infinity Books 1989.

Nassaar, Christopher Suhal: ‘Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan and Shaw’s Mrs Warren’s Profession.’ Explicator 56
pp.137-8 Washington DC 1998.

Powell, Kerry: ‘Wilde, Shaw and Women of the Stage.’ William Andrews Clark Memorial Library Conference: Oscar Wilde and the Culture of the Fin-de-Siècle, Session II Los Angeles 5th March 1999.

Roy, Emil: British Drama Since Shaw [Chapter on The Importance of Being Earnest] Carbondale and London : Southern Illinois U.P. & Feffer and Simons 1972.

Ruff, William: ‘Shaw on Wilde and Morris, A Clarification’ Shaw Review 11 : 1 January 1968.

Sherard, Robert Harborough: Bernard Shaw, Frank Harris & Oscar Wilde. New York 1936.

Sherard, Robert Harborough: Bernard Shaw, Frank Harris & Oscar Wilde. T. Werner Laurie London 1937.

Sherard, Robert Harborough: Oscar Wilde ‘Drunkard & Swindler’: A Reply to George Bernard Shaw, Dr G.J. Renier, Frank Harris etc. Calvi: Vindex Publishing Co. 1933.

Weintraub, Stanley: ‘"The Hibernian School": Oscar Wilde and Bernard Shaw.’ SHAW: The Annual of Bernard Shaw Studies 13 1993.

Weintraub, Stanley: Shaw’s People: Victoria to Churchill. University Park, Pennsylvania: 1996.

Wisenthal, J. L.: ‘Wilde, Shaw and the Play of Conversation Modern Drama.’ (U. of Toronto Graduate Centre for Study of Drama) 37:1 Downsview, Ontario Spring 1994.

We welcome additions and corrections, and would much like to hear from any of the writers still living.

A list of websites kindly provided by Richard Dietrich (University of South Florida):

BERNARD SHAW SOCIETY WEB SITE (see illustration below):
http://chuma.cas.usf.edu/~dietrich/shawsociety.html

UNIVERSITY PRESS OF FLORIDA SHAW SERIES WEB SITE:
http://www.upf.com/shaw.html
http://www.upf.com/se-shaw.html

SHAW BIZNESS WEB SITE:
http://chuma.cas.usf.edu/~dietrich/shawbizness.html

INTERNATIONAL SHAW SOCIETY WEB SITE:
http://chuma.cas.usf.edu/~dietrich/international_shaw_society/index.html

THE SHAW FESTIVAL
http://www.shawfest.com

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA SHAW CONFERENCE 2004 AT SARASOTA:
http://chuma.cas.usf.edu/~dietrich/USFShawConference2004-Sarasota/index.html

BRITISH DRAMA 1890-1950:
http://chuma.cas.usf.edu/~dietrich/britishdrama.htm

Other websites include
http://www.infography.com/content/272906973619.html (a bibliography)
http://www.therightside.demon.co.uk/quotes/shaw/ which has 123 quotations from Shaw, but irritatingly does not source them.
http://www.georgebernardshaw.com/ is The Bernard Shaw Information & Research Service, which has as its Patrons Dame Diana Rigg, Dame Wendy Hiller, Brian Cox, Richard E Grant and Jerry Hall, a remarkable list.
http://www.phnet.fi/public/mamaa1/shaw.html also gives an unsourced list of ‘quotes’ -- ‘one-liners’ -- presented in a table. The best use of it is to check all those sayings ascribed to Wilde that are in fact by Shaw.
http://www.shawchicago.org is the site of the Shaw Chicago Theatre Company, specialising in Shaw’s plays.
http://www.theheritagetrail.co.uk/notable%20houses/shaws%20corner.htm has two pictures of Shaw’s house and a brief account.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/programmes/centurions/shaw/shawbiog.shtml gives a biography of Shaw as it appeared to the BBC compilers.
http://mobydicks.com/lecture/BernardShawhall/wwwboard.html is a discussion group, with the somewhat brassbound greeting ‘Ahoy mate! Welcome to the new Bernard Shaw lecture hall! The old Bernard Shaw lecture hall may be found at http://mobydicks.com/lecture/BernardShawhall/wwwboard23.html Visit the Bernard Shaw Live Chat, and use the forum below to schedule a chat session.’
http://www.lyfe.freeserve.co.uk/quoteshaw.htm is another site with Shaw quotations, again, irritatingly, unsourced. Substitute wilde for shaw in the URL for an Oscar Wilde quotation site.

5. SHAW ASSOCIATIONS

The Bernard Shaw Society may be reached at P.O. Box 1159, Madison Square Station New York, N.Y. 10159-1159

The Society publishes The Independent Shavian. The image below is the latest one on their website (vol.40 nos 2-3. 2002).

The Independent Shavian appears three times a year and is sent to all members of the Bernard Shaw Society at no charge as part of their membership dues.

What we have previously referred to as the The Irish Shaw Society should correctly have been called The Dublin Shaw Society. This maintains no website but may be contacted through the Hon. Secretary. Mary Casey has now succeeded Breda O’Brien in this post (no address as yet available). The Society meets on the third Wednesday of every month in the United Arts Club, 3 Fitzwilliam Street, Dublin 2. Membership is €15 p.a., for an individual, €35 for a couple. On Wednesday 18th June Brian McGrath and Una Minto will perform ‘Shaw and Recocnilable Differences’.

Plans are taking shape to re vamp the Society, and anybody interested should contact the Chairman, Brian Mc Grath <bricar@gofree.indigo.ie>

6. TAILPIECE

‘England is the land of intellectual fogs but you have done much to clear the air: we are both Celtic, and I like to think that we are friends.’

– Oscar Wilde to George Bernard Shaw to Oscar Wilde (‘My dear Shaw’) 23rd February 1893; in Merlin Holland & Rupert Hart-Davis: The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde. London: Fourth Estate 2000. p.554.