SHAW, George Bernard

(1856-1950)

   Irish-born writer of novels, plays and much controversial nonfiction; Nobel Literature Prize 1925. He lived most of his life in England, where he remained ferociously active over a writing careerlasting 70 years. Some of his early plays - like Man and Superman: A Comedy and a Philosophy (1903) and Androcles and the Lion (performed 1913;as title of omni 1916) - contain fantasy elements, though deployed with a cool Shavian sanity which repudiates any sense of escapism. Press Cuttings (1909 chap), a play about women's rights set in the NEAR FUTURE, was closeto sf, and the destruction of the old world order in Heartbreak House (as title of omni 1919) seemed backward-looking only because of the play's five-year wait for publication. GBS's first genuine sf play was Back to Methuselah: A Metabiological Pentateuch (1921 US; rev 1921 UK and severaltimes further to 1945 UK), a 5-part depiction of mankind's EVOLUTION from the time of Genesis into the FAR FUTURE, when people have become long-lived and, by AD31,920, are on the verge of suffering corporeal transcendence into disembodied thought-entities. Hereafter GBS's plays - which have only posthumously escaped the charge that their dissolution of realist conventions simply demonstrated the senility of their author - increasingly utilized sf or fantasy modes to make a series of remarkably bleak utterances about Homo sapiens and about the chances of the species ever doing well. The Apple Cart: A Political Extravaganza (first English-language publication 1930), set in the UK near the end of thecentury after a Channel Tunnel has been built, ironically posits monarchism as an answer to the power of great corporations. Too True to be Good: A Political Extravaganza (performed 1932) and On the Rocks: APolitical Comedy (performed 1933) - both assembled in Too True to be Good, Village Wooing \& On the Rocks (omni 1934) - more scathingly and far-rangingly explore similar material, as do The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles: A Vision of Judgment (1935) and Geneva: A Fancied Pageof History (1939). Buoyant Billions (1948 Switzerland; with Farfetched Fables as omni 1950) presents some terminal UTOPIAN thoughts in the guiseof fantasy.None of GBS's 19th-century novels are of genre interest, but The Adventures of the Black Girl in her Search for God (1932 chap) isfantasy, and some of the items assembled in Short Stories (coll 1932) are sf. Both books were assembled with revisions as Short Stories, Scraps and Shavings (omni 1934); The Black Girl in Search of God, and Some LesserTales (coll 1946) also assembles this part of his oeuvre.It should be noted that many of GBS's plays were "published" for the use of actors long before their official release, and that the official release was generally revised; moreover, during the last half century of his life - financial independence allowing him to subsidize this activity - GBS was in the habit of making constant unsignalled revisions to the extremely numerous reprints of his work. We have not attempted to trace these changes.

   JC

   See also: ADAM AND EVE; IMMORTALITY; SUPERMAN; THEATRE.