Book Description

This selected correspondence of Bernard Shaw relating to the play Widowers' Houses contains 160 letters and entries written between 1885 and 1933 and edited by a leading contemporary Shavian Vitaly Baziyan. The text of the play from a revised edition Plays: Pleasant and Unpleasant. The First Volume, Containing the Three Unpleasant Plays (Widowers' Houses, The Philandered, & Mrs Warren's Profession) published by Constable and Company Ltd, London 1919 is a handmade reproduction from the original edition, and remains as true to the original work as possible. The original edition was processed manually by means of a classic editing which ensures the quality of publications and the unrestricted enjoyment of reading. Here are some inspirational book quotes from Bernard Shaw: 'I do not hesitate to say that many of my critics have been completely beaten by the play simply because they are ignorant of society.' 'Now, the didactic object of my play is to produce conviction of sin, to make the Pharisee who repudiates Sartorius as either a Harpagon [a character of a comedy The Miser by the French playwright Molière] or a diseased dream of mine, and thanks God that such persons do not represent his class, recognize that Sartorius is his own photograph.' 'These gentlemen believe that, according to me, what is wrong with society is that the rich, who are all wicked, oppress the poor, who are all virtuous. I will not waste the space of The Star by dealing with such a misconception further than to curtly but goodhumoredly inform those who entertain it that they are fools.' 'Unfortunately I have no power of producing beauty: my genius is the genius of intellect, and my farce its derisive brutality.' 'As a matter of fact I am by a very great deal the best English language playwright since Shakespear, and considerably his superior on a good many points.' 'If my readers do their fair share of the work, I daresay they will understand nearly as much of the plays as I do myself.' 'Formerly, a man was responsible only for his private conduct and for the maintenance of his own household. Today, as an inevitable consequence of Democracy, he is responsible for the state of the whole community which he helps to govern as a citizen and a voter.' 'In "Widowers' Houses" you had the rich suburban villa standing on the rents of the foul rookery.' 'If my readers do their fair share of the work, I daresay they will understand nearly as much of the plays as I do myself.' 'As a matter of fact I am by a very great deal the best English language playwright since Shakespear, and considerably his superior on a good many points.' 'In conclusion, let me say that whilst I shall not affect to attribute the difference between myself and most of my critics to anything else but the pretty plain fact that I know my subject much better than they do.' 'Three months ago the play would certainly not have been worth publishing. Today a heap of articles and notices (my own collection of press cuttings runs over 130, and is far from complete) has presumably created some curiosity about the work; and it is the value of the curiosity that is now in the market.' 'My sole object is to knock on the head a few empty formulas which take up the space in dramatic criticism which should be occupied by real ideas, and which have been trotted out in the last few years whenever a play has been produced with any pretension to represent modern life as it is really lived.' 'It annoys me to see English writers absolutely ignoring the work of British thinkers, and swallowing foreign celebrities-whether philosophers or opera-singers-without a grain of salt. It chews an utter want of intellectual self-respect...' 'Contemporary journalism, like democracy, is always a better judge of second-rate than of first-rate.'