Beschreibung:

SHAW, GEORGE BERNARD. Autograph letter signed ("G.B. Shaw") to a Mr. Clark, 36 Osnaburgh St., N.W., London 1 April 1884, 3 1/2 pages, small 8vo, first and fourth pages dust-soiled, marginal chip in second leaf with loss of a word, two long fold tears and two small tears in the text (across a few words, but nothing missing) , in poor condition, but a fine, early letter: "What has put it into the head of the Invicta Club [a working men's club in Woolwich] that I can lecture? I have never done more than a few minutes turn in a debate; and even then, when socialism was in question, I generally bored the audience... Will you kindly let me know before asking me for a definite answer, how long the lecture should be... what subject would be the best to take, and any information in general, that you have that would enlighten a socialist who is much more ignorant than he ought to be on the subject of working men's clubs. I am delighted to hear that Mrs. Clark likes the novel [ An Unsocial Socialist , which began its serialization in To-Day in March 1884] but I am afraid she will be all the more disappointed when the story turns out (as [it] will in the June number or thereabouts) to be an artful leading up to the old rigmarole of surplus value and the Lancashire cotton industry and all the rest of it. However, Agatha [a major character in the novel] has too much sense to be mixed up with the political economy and for her sake, I hope Mrs. Clark will read on to the bitter end. Is there much of the Irish element in Woolrich? I am curious on this point because I am myself Irish..."; Autograph letter signed ("G. Bernard Shaw") to Arthur W. Knight, Jr., London, 6 December 1895, 2 pages, 18mo, on blue "Letter Card" addressed by Shaw, two small marginal tears injuring a couple of letters, beginning to split at center fold, a little soiled : "...There are a good many obstacles in the way of sincere criticism -- chief among them, perhaps, being the difficulty of making pleasant reading of fault finding. I pointed out the sore places some years ago in the appendix to a little book of mine called The Quintessence of Ibsenism ... The worst of it is that when you have found your critic, you have still to find an editor capable to standing up to him. Without Edmund Yates & Frank Harris, there would have been no G.B.S. [George Bernard Shaw] articles... I cannot complain that I have been gagged, though I owe my freedom more to my mother wit than to the honesty of the press." Neither letter is in Letters , ed. Dan H. Laurence, and are presumed unpublished. (2)