Auction Date:2012 Oct 17 @ 18:00 (UTC-5 : EST/CDT)
Location:5 Rt 101A Suite 5, Amherst, New Hampshire, 03031, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
TLS signed “G. Bernard Shaw,” one page, 8 x 10, personal letterhead, December 3, 1909. Letter to friend and scholar Gilbert Murray. In full: “I write to you on the spur of the moment, having just had a violent shock through the telephone. Said shock was caused by the voice of Lewis Waller asking me to make him a high-class translation of Cyrano de Bergerac for performance in the spring. Now from Euripides to Rostand is a long jump; but in a certain way the mere feat of translation is of the same character. There is a genuine vein of phantasy and grace of expression to be preserved—and more poetry, after all, than there is in Aristophanes. Would you be disposed to take the job? If so, although Waller has an unspeakable terror of you as the terrible translator of Euripides, and probably believes you to be personally exactly like Doctor Johnson, the thing might be managed. There may even be money in it.” Central horizontal and vertical folds, light scattered creases, and some mirroring of the typewritten text, otherwise fine condition. T. S. Eliot similarly criticized Murray’s translations, writing that “it is because Professor Murray has no creative instinct that he leaves Euripides quite dead,” and called for academia to “endeavour to neutralize Professor Murray's influence upon Greek literature and English language.” It does not appear as though Murray ultimately got the job, or, if he did, it went unpublished. A letter with fascinating literary implications—Murray also served as the inspiration for Adolphus Cusins in one of Shaw’s greatest works, Major Barbara.
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5 Rt 101A Suite 5, Amherst, New Hampshire, 03031, United States
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