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Bernard Shaw: A Life
Overview
"Bernard Shaw: A Life is an intelligent and sympathetic reappraisal of one of the great modern dramatists, replacing the legend of the cranky, sexless preacher with a humane and attractive portrait of the man and his work."--Nicholas Grene, Trinity College, Dublin "Biography as it should be. Gibbs grounds his rich trove of new information in solid and sensible interpretations that will provide important new grist for the scholarly Shaw mill. Better yet, his sprightly prose and engaging writing make Shaw's biography as delightful to read as anything Shaw himself wrote. Any fan of GBS will want to read this book."--Deirdre Bair, author and National Book Award Winner for Samuel Beckett: A Biography
"Bernard Shaw: A Life is a vivid time capsule of a biography. A life and times, in a single accessible volume, of a creative master and canny controversialist who occupied the world stage into his tenth decade is a remarkable achievement." --Stanley Weintraub, biographer and editor of Shaw: The Diaries and Shaw: An Autobiography
"As Gibb’s biography has the great virtue of just letting the facts speak for themselves, as much as possible, it won’t surprise me if this relatively spin-free work becomes the Shaw biography of choice for many years to come. There’s nothing like the ineluctable march of incontrovertible facts presented in an entertaining style to persuade the reader that this is the way it really was, not as the biographer would like it to be to prove a case." -- Richard Dietrich, President, International Shaw Society
Bernard Shaw fashioned public images of himself that belied the nature and depth of his emotional experiences and the complexity of his intellectual outlook. In this absorbing biography, noted Shavian authority A. M. Gibbs debunks many of the elements that form the foundation of Shaw's self-created legend--from his childhood (which was not the loveless experience he claimed publicly), to his sexual relationships with several women, to his marriage, his politics, his Irish identity, and his controversial philosophy of Creative Evolution.
Drawing on previously unpublished materials, including never-before-seen photographs and early sketches by Shaw, Gibbs offers a fresh perspective and brings us closer than ever before to the human being behind the masks.
A.M. Gibbs is Emeritus Professor of English at Macquarie University, Sydney, and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. He is a graduate of the University of Melbourne, and of Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He is known internationally as a leading authority on Shaw, about whom he has published many books and essays, and is a member of the founding Council of the International Shaw Society. His previous publications include The Art and Mind of Shaw: Essays in Criticism, Shaw: Interviews and Recollections, and A Bernard Shaw Chronology. |
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