Shaw: The Annual of Bernard Shaw Studies

The second volume in the attractive new format ranges the early Shavian canon from Mrs Warren's Profession to Pygmalion, offering new insights as well into Candida, Man and Superman, John Bull's Other Island and Major Barbara. It includes analyses of Shaw's Wagnerism—in particular the profound impact of Siegfried—and his paradoxical "Republican Royalism,'' which surfaced early and persisted late. One essay good-humoredly demonstrates the possible impact of "The Lady Automaton," a turn-of-the-century science-fiction story, on Pygmalion, and the charming "period story" itself is reprinted as tailpiece. The introduction to the volume (unconnected with "The Lady Automaton") is SF writer Ray Bradbury's delightful satiric poem, "G.B.S. and the Loin of Pork." A major section of SHAW is devoted to an annotated checklist, "The Shaw/Dickens File," which proves not only how often Shaw mined his favorite novelist, but that checklists can even be entertaining reading. The regular departmental features proven so essential to Shaw studies—the "Continuing Checklist of Shaviana" (now an annotated annual bibliography) and reviews of relevant new books—continue in the new SHAW.