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SHAW, GEORGE BERNARD

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SHAW, GEORGE BERNARD
(1856 - 1950) British playwright and critic with classic acerbic wit. His works include Pygmalion, The Devil's Disciple, and much criticism of the arts. Fine content A.M., unsigned, 3pp. 4to., [n.p., n.d.], a manuscript in a secretarial hand consisting of a wonderful series of classic, biting Shavian remarks regarding World War I, and the philosophical nature of war in general, with several corrections in Shaw's hand. In very small part: ""àThe long duration of this war has resulted less from its hitherto undreamed of military machinery, less from even more underprecedented wholesale fabrication of public opinion, than from the spiritual mechanism of errors and myths which the vastness, the identity of this war's dangers and sacrifices automatically set up in the minds of all the warring peoples. [In holograph] The word long should now be omitted, as the war is now seen to have been, in fact, an amazingly short one)àIndeed, our optimistic talk about extracting good out of evil is, perhaps, one of Satan's little ironical tricks for, in his way, extracting evil out of goodàBut what the poor world of reality requires are heroes who can be heroic, and saints who can be saintly, on their own account, without a crowd to back themà"". With a typescript copy of the corrected manuscript. In fine condition, and an excellent example of Shaw's rhetorical brilliance.