Call Number:

F0671

Repository:

University of Delaware Library Special Collections

Extent:

3 item (2 photographs and 1 card)

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

MSS 0099, F0671, George Bernard Shaw postcard to Daphne Harwood, Special Collections, University of Delaware Library, Newark, Delaware.

Date:

1929 july 1 (inclusive)

Creator:

Shaw, Bernard, 1856-1950

Form:

Postcards and Photographs

Abstract:

George Bernard Shaw postcard to Daphne Harwood. The collection also contains two photographs.

Prominent critic and playwright, George Bernard Shaw, was born on July 26, 1856, in Dublin, Ireland.

In 1876 Shaw followed his mother and sister to London where he began his literary career by experimenting with short fiction, drama, and several novels (all rejected by publishers). The 1880s were a decade in which Shaw underwent extensive development. During this time he adopted socialism, became a vegetarian, developed as an orator and polemicist, and began seriously writing drama. He helped to found the Fabian Society, a middle-class socialist group which sought to transform English society, in 1884.

In addition to being a renowned critic and later playwright, Bernard Shaw is also remembered for the challenging prefaces he wrote to his plays and books.

One of Shaw's greatest achievements was his invention of the theater of ideas, by insisting that the theater provide some moral instruction. In the process he also created a new genre, the serious farce. The serious farce consisted of using the techniques of comedy to advance serious views on humanity, society, and political systems. His plays, criticism, and political conscience all helped shape the theater of his time and after.

In 1898, during his recuperation from major illness, he married his unofficial nurse, Charlotte Payne-Townshend, an Irish heiress and friend of Beatrice and Sidney Webb. Their marriage lasted until Charlotte's death in 1943. Bernard Shaw died on November 2, 1950, at the age of 94.

"Shaw, George Bernard."The Dictionary of National Biography, 1941-1950. Edited by L. G. Wickham Legg and E. T. Williams. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985). Pages 773-782."Bernard Shaw."Dictionary of Literary Biography. Volume 10. Written by Stanley Weintraub. Pages 129-148.

This collection consists of a postcard from George Bernard Shaw to Daphne Harwood along with two photographs: one of Shaw in later life and one of that shows a dark-haired younger Shaw, seated on the grass and reading a book, with Harwood seated behind him trimming Shaw's hair.