An Unsocial Socialist

1913. Most of Shaw's early plays were either banned by the censor or refused production. He began the practice of writing the challenging, mocking, eloquent prefaces to his plays, which were sometimes longer than the play itself. In 1925 he won the Nobel prize. The Unsocial Socialist is one of Shaw's last satires and was the inspiration for the play, Smash. The book begins: In the dusk of an October evening, a sensible looking woman of forty came out through an oaken door to a broad landing on the first floor of an old English country-house. A braid of her hair had fallen forward as if she had been stooping over book or pen; and she stood for a moment to smooth it, and to gaze contemplatively-not in the least sentimentally-through the tall, narrow window. The sun was setting, but its glories were at the other side of the house; for this window looked eastward, where the landscape of sheepwalks and pasture land was sobering at the approach of darkness.


Genre: Literary Fiction