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Bernard Shaw's Beginnings on the London Stage
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
In 1892, at the age of thirty-six, Bernard Shaw was a notorious socialist and a bachelor, living with his musical mother and sister in London. He had begun paying his way seven years before as a critic of art; now he assayed music; soon, in 1894, it was to be weekly evaluation of the drama. Four of his six novels—five of them written while his mother supported him—had appeared obscurely and unprofitably. In 1891 a young Dutch friend and fellow critic, Jacob T. Grein, had produced Ibsen's Ghosts to inaugurate the new Independent Theatre in support of Shaw's almost solitary campaign for the New Drama. Grein sought but could not at first find an adequate English play in the new vein. “This was not to be endured,” Shaw later recalled. “I had rashly taken up the case, and rather than let it collapse, I manufactured the evidence.” He had embarked upon Widowers' Houses in 1885 only to lay it aside uncompleted; he now finished it, and Grein produced it on 9 December 1892 at the Royalty Theatre, on quite unfashionable Dean Street in Soho. It was Shaw's first appearance on any stage.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- PMLA , Volume 74 , Issue 4-Part1: Proceedings of the Modern Language Association of America , September 1959 , pp. 470 - 481
- Copyright
- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1959
References
1 Quoted in Archibald Henderson, George Bernard Shaw: Man of the Century (New York, 1956), p. 423. This is by far the most informative life of Shaw, a great monument to American scholarship. Except when otherwise attributed, biographical data about Shaw in this article are from this book.
2 Widowers' Houses (London, 1893), p. xiii.
3 MS account book in Shaw's handwriting, Hanley Collection, Bradford, Pa. I am greatly indebted to Dr. T. E. Hanley for having been allowed to study his private collection of unpublished MSS by Shaw, including his letters to Janet Achurch and Charles Charrington. The Univ. of Texas, which recently (1958) acquired this collection, has given me permission to quote from it, and I wish to express my gratitude.
4 Typescript, Lord Chamberlain's Office, St. James's Palace, London. This reveals that Shaw so submitted his play for licensing; it was dated 31 March 1894, and the license was granted 16 April following.
5 MS letter from Shaw to Charrington, undated, Hanley Collection.
6 Letter viii, Letters from George Bernard Shaw to Miss Alma Murray (Edinburgh, 1927), n.p.
7 Adelaide H. Calvert, Sixty-eight Years on the Stage (London, 1911), p. 252.
8 Ellen Terry and Bernard Shaw: A Correspondence, ed. Christopher St. John (New York, 1931), p. 233.
9 MS notes in Shaw's handwriting, Theatrical Collection, Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
10 G. B. S.: A Pull-Length Portrait (New York, 1942), p. 167.
11 Sixty-eight Years on the Stage, p. 253.
12 MS letter from Shaw to C. T. H. Helmsley, dated 17 April 1894, Hanley Collection.
13 Goldwin Smith, D.C.L. (d. 1910), Regius Prof. of Modern History, Oxford, 1858-66; Prof. of English and Constitutional Law, Cornell Univ., author of many works on the U. S., Ireland, abolition, etc. (Who Was Who, 1897-1916). I have found no record of any connection of his with Moscow or Siberia.
14 Plays: Pleasant and Unpleasant, 2 vols. (Chicago, 1898), ii, 187.
15 Typescript, Lord Chamberlain's Office.
16 Quoted in Sixty-eight Years on the Stage, p. 254.
17 See, 21-29 April, Era, Globe, News of the World, Pall Mall Gazette, People, Sportsman, Referee, Times & Echo, Sketch, Standard, Star, Sun, Weekly Sun, Weekly Times, Telegraph, Westminster Gazette, Manchester Guardian, etc.
18 William Archer, Theatrical World of 1894 (London, 1895), pp. xxii-xxviii.
19 John Drinkwater, Inheritance: Being the First Book of an Autobiography (London, 1931), pp. 142-143.
20 William Winter, Life and Art of Richard Mansfield, 2 vols. (New York, 1910), I, 221-226.
21 Journal (New York, 1933), p. 696.
22 Lawrence Langner, The Magic Curtain (New York, 1951), p. 251.
23 Typescript dated 7 Dec., Lord Chamberlain's Office. It was read 25 March 1895 and licensed 5 April following.
24 C. B. Purdom, ed. Bernard Shaw's Letters to Harley Granville Barker (London, 1956), p. 178.
25 Harris, Bernard Shaw (New York, 1931), p. 145.
26 Ashley Dukes, “A Doll's House and the Open Door,” Theatre Arts, xii (Jan. 1928), 23-28. Mr. Dukes assured me that this part of the article was written by Shaw.
27 Dukes; Who's Who in the Theatre, 2nd ed. (London, 1916); Ernest Short, Sixty Years of Theatre (London, 1951), p. 104; W. Davenport, Dictionary of the Drama, Vol. i, “A-G” (London, 1904)—but no more published.
28 New York: Dodd, Mead, 1958.
29 MS letter from Shaw to Janet Achurch, Hanley Collection. All further quotations of Shaw to Janet Achurch and Charles Charrington are taken from MS letters in this collection
30 Letter from Shaw to Charrington dated 7 July 1895.
31 Ellen Terry and Shaw, p. 178.
32 Ibid., p. 181.
33 Typescript, Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant, ii, 283 (Lord Chamberlain's Office).
34 Dukes, “A Doll's House and the Open Door,” p. 25.
35 Ellen Terry and Shaw, p. 283.
36 Play programs, Mander and Mitchenson Theatre Collection, London.
37 Cf. Theater, iv (Jan. 1904), 5; New York Clipper, 9 Jan. 1904; an unattributed clipping dated 10 Jan. 1904, in the Locke Collection, N. Y. Public Lib.; and Henderson, Shaw, pp. 476-479.
38 MS account book, Hanley Collection.
39 The Court Theatre, 1904-1907 (London, 1907), p. 72.
40 Sat. Rev., 14 and 21 May 1898 and 9 Dec. 1905.
41 New York Dramatic Mirror, 26 May 1915.
42 Ellen Terry and Shaw, pp. 20, 23, 97.
43 Henderson, Table Talk of G.B.S. (London, 1925), p. 75.
44 History of the Late Nineteenth Century Drama, 1850-1900, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1949), i, 90-91.
45 Three Plays for Puritans (New York, 1901), pp. xxiv-xxvi.
46 Quoted in Paul Wilstach, Richard Mansfield (New York, 1909), p. 282.
47 Typescript, Three Plays for Puritans, p. 115 (Lord Chamberlain's Office).
48 MS account book, Hanley Collection.
49 Shaw's Plays in Review (New York, 1951), pp. 198-199