Editing George Bernard Shaw (section)

==Works==
{{see also|List of works by George Bernard Shaw}}

===Plays===
Shaw published a collected edition of his plays in 1934, comprising forty-two works.{{sfn|Shaw|1934|pp=vii–viii}} He wrote a further twelve in the remaining sixteen years of his life, mostly [[one-act play|one-act]] pieces. Including eight earlier plays that he chose to omit from his published works, the total is sixty-two.{{refn|The works Shaw omitted from his ''Complete Plays'' were ''[[Passion Play: a dramatic fragment|Passion Play]]''; ''[[Un Petit Drame]]''; ''[[The Interlude at the Playhouse]]''; ''[[Beauty's Duty]]''; an untitled ''[[Macbeth Skit|parody of Macbeth]]''; ''[[A Glimpse of the Domesticity of Franklyn Barnabas]]'' and ''[[How These Doctors Love One Another!]]''.{{sfn|Shaw|1934|pp=vii–viii}}|group=n}}

====Early works====
{{quote box|width=300px|bgcolor=#E0E6F8|align=right|quote=
'''1890s'''

'''Full-length plays'''
*''[[Widowers' Houses]]''
*''[[The Philanderer]]''
*''[[Mrs Warren's Profession]]''
*''[[Arms and the Man]]''
*''[[Candida (play)|Candida]]''
*''[[You Never Can Tell (play)|You Never Can Tell]]''
*''[[Three Plays for Puritans]]'', comprising:
::*''[[The Devil's Disciple (play)|The Devil's Disciple]]''
::*''[[Caesar and Cleopatra (play)|Caesar and Cleopatra]]''
::*''[[Captain Brassbound's Conversion]]''

'''Adaptation'''
*''[[The Gadfly (play)|The Gadfly]]''

'''Short play'''
*''[[The Man of Destiny]]''
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Shaw's first three full-length plays dealt with social issues. He later grouped them as "Plays Unpleasant".{{sfn|Holroyd|1990|pp=400–405}} ''Widowers' Houses'' (1892) concerns the landlords of slum properties, and introduces the first of Shaw's [[New Woman|New Women]]—a recurring feature of later plays.{{sfn|Powell|1998|pp=74–78}} ''The Philanderer'' (1893) develops the theme of the New Woman, draws on Ibsen, and has elements of Shaw's personal relationships, the character of Julia being based on Jenny Patterson.{{sfn|Evans|2003|pp=28–30}} In a 2003 study Judith Evans describes ''Mrs Warren's Profession'' (1893) as "undoubtedly the most challenging" of the three Plays Unpleasant, taking Mrs Warren's profession—prostitute and, later, brothel-owner—as a metaphor for a prostituted society.{{sfn|Evans|2003|p=31}}

Shaw followed the first trilogy with a second, published as "Plays Pleasant".{{sfn|Holroyd|1990|pp=400–405}} ''Arms and the Man'' (1894) conceals beneath a mock-Ruritanian comic romance a Fabian parable contrasting impractical idealism with pragmatic socialism.{{sfn|Evans|2003|pp=34–35}} The central theme of ''Candida'' (1894) is a woman's choice between two men; the play contrasts the outlook and aspirations of a [[Christian socialism|Christian Socialist]] and a poetic idealist.{{sfn|Peters|1998|p=18}} The third of the Pleasant group, ''You Never Can Tell'' (1896), portrays social mobility, and the gap between generations, particularly in how they approach social relations in general and mating in particular.{{sfn|Evans|2003|pp=38–39}}

The ''[[Three Plays for Puritans]]''—comprising ''[[The Devil's Disciple (play)|The Devil's Disciple]]'' (1896), ''[[Caesar and Cleopatra (play)|Caesar and Cleopatra]]'' (1898) and ''[[Captain Brassbound's Conversion]]'' (1899)—all centre on questions of empire and imperialism, a major topic of political discourse in the 1890s.{{sfn|Evans|2003|p=41}} The three are set, respectively, in [[Thirteen Colonies|1770s America]], Ancient Egypt, and [[History of Morocco#European influence (c. 1830 – 1956)|1890s Morocco]].{{sfn|Shaw|1934|pp=218, 250 and 297}} ''The Gadfly'', an adaptation of [[The Gadfly|the popular novel]] by [[Ethel Voynich]], was unfinished and unperformed.{{sfn|Innes "Introduction"|1998|p=xxi}} ''The Man of Destiny'' (1895) is a short [[curtain raiser]] about [[Napoleon]].{{sfn|Wikander|1998|p=196}}

====1900–1909====
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'''1900–1909'''

'''Full-length plays'''
*''[[Man and Superman]]''
*''[[John Bull's Other Island]]''
*''[[Major Barbara]]''
*''[[The Doctor's Dilemma (play)|The Doctor's Dilemma]]''
*''[[Getting Married]]''
*''[[Misalliance (play)|Misalliance]]''

'''Short plays'''
*''[[The Admirable Bashville]]''
*''[[How He Lied to Her Husband]]''
*''[[Passion, Poison, and Petrifaction]]''
*''[[The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet]]''
*''[[Press Cuttings]]''
*''[[The Fascinating Foundling]]''
*''[[The Glimpse of Reality]]''
|salign = left}}

Shaw's major plays of the first decade of the twentieth century address individual social, political or ethical issues. ''Man and Superman'' (1902) stands apart from the others in both its subject and its treatment, giving Shaw's interpretation of [[Creative Evolution (book)|creative evolution]] in a combination of drama and associated printed text.{{sfn|Evans|2003|p=49}} ''The Admirable Bashville'' (1901), a blank verse dramatisation of Shaw's novel ''Cashel Byron's Profession'', focuses on the imperial relationship between [[British Africa|Britain and Africa]].{{sfn|Evans|2003|pp=46–47}} ''John Bull's Other Island'' (1904), comically depicting the prevailing relationship between Britain and Ireland, was popular at the time but fell out of the general repertoire in later years.{{sfn|Gaye|1967|p=1410}} ''Major Barbara'' (1905) presents ethical questions in an unconventional way, confounding expectations that in the depiction of an armaments manufacturer on the one hand and the Salvation Army on the other the moral high ground must invariably be held by the latter.{{sfn|Evans|2003|pp=62–65}} ''The Doctor's Dilemma'' (1906), a play about medical ethics and moral choices in allocating scarce treatment, was described by Shaw as a tragedy.{{sfn|Shaw|1934|p=503}} With a reputation for presenting characters who did not resemble real flesh and blood,{{sfn|Beerbohm|1962|p=8}} he was challenged by Archer to present an on-stage death, and here did so, with a deathbed scene for the [[anti-hero]].{{sfn|Shaw|1934|p=540}}{{sfn|Holroyd|2012}}

''Getting Married'' (1908) and ''Misalliance'' (1909)—the latter seen by Judith Evans as a companion piece to the former—are both in what Shaw called his "disquisitionary" vein, with the emphasis on discussion of ideas rather than on dramatic events or vivid characterisation.{{sfn|Sharp|1959|pp=103 and 105}} Shaw wrote seven short plays during the decade; they are all comedies, ranging from the deliberately absurd ''[[Passion, Poison, and Petrifaction]]'' (1905) to the satirical ''[[Press Cuttings]]'' (1909).{{sfn|Evans|2003|pp=80 and 82}}

====1910–1919====
{{quote box|width=300px|bgcolor=#E0E6F8|align=right|quote=
'''1910–1919'''

'''Full-length plays'''
*''[[Fanny's First Play]]''
*''[[Androcles and the Lion (play)|Androcles and the Lion]]''
*''[[Pygmalion (play)|Pygmalion]]''
*''[[Heartbreak House]]''

'''Short plays'''
*''[[The Dark Lady of the Sonnets]]''
*''[[Overruled (play)|Overruled]]''
*''[[The Music Cure]]''
*''[[Great Catherine: Whom Glory Still Adores|Great Catherine]]''
*''[[The Inca of Perusalem]]''
*''[[O'Flaherty V.C.]]''
*''[[Augustus Does His Bit]]''
*''[[Annajanska, the Bolshevik Empress]]''
|salign = left}}

In the decade from 1910 to the aftermath of the First World War Shaw wrote four full-length plays, the third and fourth of which are among his most frequently staged works.{{sfn|Gaye|1967|pp=1366 and 1466}} ''Fanny's First Play'' (1911) continues his earlier examinations of middle-class British society from a Fabian viewpoint, with additional touches of melodrama and an epilogue in which theatre critics discuss the play.{{sfn|Evans|2003|pp=75–78}} ''Androcles and the Lion'' (1912), which Shaw began writing as a play for children, became a study of the nature of religion and how to put Christian precepts into practice.{{sfn|Evans|2003|pp=99–101}} ''Pygmalion'' (1912) is a Shavian study of language and speech and their importance in society and in personal relationships. To correct the impression left by the original performers that the play portrayed a romantic relationship between the two main characters Shaw rewrote the ending to make it clear that the heroine will marry another, minor character.{{sfn|Evans|2003|pp=101 and 104}}{{refn|In a 2003 encyclopaedia article on Shaw, Nicholas Grene writes, "The Cinderella story of the flower-girl turned into a lady by a professor of phonetics resulted in a lifelong struggle by Shaw, first with&nbsp;... Tree and then with film producers, to prevent it being returned to stock with a 'happy' ending. This was a battle Shaw was to lose posthumously when the sugar-coated musical comedy adaptation, Lerner and Loewe's ''My Fair Lady'' (1956), went on to make more money for the Shaw estate than all his plays put together."{{sfn|Grene 2003 ''Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre''}}|group=n}} Shaw's only full-length play from the war years is ''Heartbreak House'' (1917), which in his words depicts "cultured, leisured Europe before the war" drifting towards disaster.{{sfn|Dervin|1975|p=286}} Shaw named Shakespeare (''[[King Lear]]'') and [[Anton Chekhov|Chekhov]] (''[[The Cherry Orchard]]'') as important influences on the piece, and critics have found elements drawing on [[William Congreve|Congreve]] (''[[The Way of the World]]'') and Ibsen (''[[The Master Builder]]'').{{sfn|Dervin|1975|p=286}}{{sfn|Holroyd|1993|p=10}}

The short plays range from genial historical drama in ''The Dark Lady of the Sonnets'' and ''Great Catherine'' (1910 and 1913) to a study of polygamy in ''Overruled''; three satirical works about the war (''The Inca of Perusalem'', ''O'Flaherty V.C.'' and ''Augustus Does His Bit'', 1915–16); a piece that Shaw called "utter nonsense" (''The Music Cure'', 1914) and a brief sketch about a "Bolshevik empress" (''Annajanska'', 1917).{{sfn|Evans|2003|pp=106–114}}

====1920–1950====
{{quote box|width=300px|bgcolor=#E0E6F8|align=right|quote=
'''1920–1950'''

'''Full-length plays'''
* ''[[Back to Methuselah]]''
* ''[[Saint Joan (play)|Saint Joan]]''
* ''[[The Apple Cart]]''
* ''[[Too True to Be Good]]''
* ''[[On the Rocks: A Political Comedy|On the Rocks]]''
* ''[[The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles]]''
* ''[[The Millionairess (play)|The Millionairess]]''
* ''[[Geneva (play)|Geneva]]''
* ''[[In Good King Charles's Golden Days]]''
* ''[[Buoyant Billions]]''

'''Short plays'''
* ''[[Village Wooing]]''
* ''[[The Six of Calais]]''
* ''[[Cymbeline Refinished]]''
* ''[[Farfetched Fables]]''
* ''[[Shakes versus Shav]]''
* ''[[Why She Would Not]]''
|salign = left}}
''Saint Joan'' (1923) drew widespread praise both for Shaw and for Sybil Thorndike, for whom he wrote the title role and who created the part in Britain.{{sfn|Croall|2008|pp=166 and 169}} In the view of the commentator Nicholas Grene, Shaw's Joan, a "no-nonsense mystic, Protestant and nationalist before her time" is among the 20th century's classic leading female roles.{{sfn|Grene 2003 ''Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre''}} ''The Apple Cart'' (1929) was Shaw's last popular success.{{sfn|Holroyd|1993|p=161}} He gave both that play and its successor, ''Too True to Be Good'' (1931), the subtitle "A political extravaganza", although the two works differ greatly in their themes; the first presents the politics of a nation (with a brief royal love-scene as an interlude) and the second, in Judith Evans's words, "is concerned with the social mores of the individual, and is nebulous."{{sfn|Evans|2003|p=154}} Shaw's plays of the 1930s were written in the shadow of worsening national and international political events. Once again, with ''On the Rocks'' (1933) and ''The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles'' (1934), a political comedy with a clear plot was followed by an introspective drama. The first play portrays a British prime minister considering, but finally rejecting, the establishment of a dictatorship; the second is concerned with polygamy and [[eugenics]] and ends with the [[Last Judgment|Day of Judgement]].{{sfn|Evans|2003|pp=163–168}}

''The Millionairess'' (1934) is a farcical depiction of the commercial and social affairs of a successful businesswoman. ''Geneva'' (1936) lampoons the feebleness of the League of Nations compared with the dictators of Europe. ''In Good King Charles's Golden Days'' (1939), described by Weintraub as a warm, discursive high comedy, also depicts authoritarianism, but less satirically than ''Geneva''.{{sfn|Weintraub|2013}} As in earlier decades, the shorter plays were generally comedies, some historical and others addressing various political and social preoccupations of the author. Ervine writes of Shaw's later work that although it was still "astonishingly vigorous and vivacious" it showed unmistakable signs of his age. "The best of his work in this period, however, was full of wisdom and the beauty of mind often displayed by old men who keep their wits about them."{{sfn|Ervine 1959 DNB archive}}

===Music and drama reviews===

====Music====
Shaw's collected musical criticism, published in three volumes, runs to more than 2,700 pages.{{sfn|Shaw and Laurence (Vol 3) 1981|pp=805–925}} It covers the British musical scene from 1876 to 1950, but the core of the collection dates from his six years as music critic of ''The Star'' and ''The World'' in the late 1880s and early 1890s. In his view music criticism should be interesting to everyone rather than just the musical élite, and he wrote for the non-specialist, avoiding technical jargon—"Mesopotamian words like 'the dominant of D major'".{{refn|In 1893 Shaw's column included his parody of music critics' idiom in a mock-academic analysis of Hamlet's "[[To be, or not to be|To be or not to be]]" soliloquy: "Shakespear, dispensing with the customary exordium, announces his subject at once in the infinitive, in which mood it is presently repeated after a short connecting passage in which, brief as it is, we recognize the alternative and negative forms on which so much of the significance of repetition depends. Here we reach a colon; and a pointed pository phrase, in which the accent falls decisively on the relative pronoun, brings us to the first full stop."{{sfn|Shaw and Laurence (Vol 2) 1981|p=898}}|group=n}} He was fiercely partisan in his columns, promoting the music of Wagner and decrying that of [[Johannes Brahms|Brahms]] and those British composers such as [[Charles Villiers Stanford|Stanford]] and [[Hubert Parry|Parry]] whom he saw as Brahmsian.{{sfn|Anderson: ''Grove Music Online''}}{{sfn|Shaw and Laurence (Vol 2) 1981|p=429}} He campaigned against the prevailing fashion for performances of [[George Frideric Handel|Handel]] [[oratorio]]s with huge amateur choirs and inflated orchestration, calling for "a chorus of twenty capable artists".{{sfn|Shaw and Laurence (Vol 2) 1981|pp=245–246}} He railed against opera productions unrealistically staged or sung in languages the audience did not speak.{{sfn|Shaw and Laurence (Vol 1) 1981|p=14}}

====Drama====
In Shaw's view, the London theatres of the 1890s presented too many revivals of old plays and not enough new work. He campaigned against "[[melodrama]], [[sentimentality]], [[Media stereotypes|stereotypes]] and worn-out conventions".{{sfn|Berst|1998|p=71}} As a music critic he had frequently been able to concentrate on analysing new works, but in the theatre he was often obliged to fall back on discussing how various performers tackled well-known plays. In a study of Shaw's work as a theatre critic, E. J. West writes that Shaw "ceaselessly compared and contrasted artists in interpretation and in technique". Shaw contributed more than 150 articles as theatre critic for ''The Saturday Review'', in which he assessed more than 212 productions.{{sfn|West|1952|p=204}} He championed [[Henrik Ibsen|Ibsen]]'s plays when many theatregoers regarded them as outrageous, and his 1891 book ''[[Quintessence of Ibsenism]]'' remained a classic throughout the twentieth century.{{sfn|Berst|1998|p=56}} Of contemporary dramatists writing for the West End stage he rated [[Oscar Wilde]] above the rest: "...&nbsp;our only thorough playwright. He plays with everything: with wit, with philosophy, with drama, with actors and audience, with the whole theatre".{{sfn|Berst|1998|pp=67–68}} Shaw's collected criticisms were published as ''Our Theatres in the Nineties'' in 1932.{{sfn|Evans|2003|pp=210–211}}

Shaw maintained a provocative and frequently self-contradictory attitude to Shakespeare (whose name he insisted on spelling "Shakespear").{{sfn|Pierce|2011|pp=118–119}} Many found him difficult to take seriously on the subject; [[Duff Cooper]] observed that by attacking Shakespeare, "it is Shaw who appears a ridiculous pigmy shaking his fist at a mountain."{{sfn|Cooper|1953|p=40}} Shaw was, nevertheless, a knowledgeable Shakespearian, and in an article in which he wrote, "With the single exception of [[Homer]], there is no eminent writer, not even [[Walter Scott|Sir Walter Scott]], whom I can despise so entirely as I despise Shakespear when I measure my mind against his," he also said, "But I am bound to add that I pity the man who cannot enjoy Shakespear. He has outlasted thousands of abler thinkers, and will outlast a thousand more".{{sfn|Pierce|2011|pp=118–119}} Shaw had two regular targets for his more extreme comments about Shakespeare: undiscriminating "[[Bardolatry|Bardolaters]]", and actors and directors who presented insensitively cut texts in over-elaborate productions.{{sfn|Pierce|2011|pp=121 and 129}}{{refn|In a 1969 study, John F. Matthews credits Shaw with a successful campaign against the two-hundred-year-old tradition of [[Shakespeare in performance#19th century|editing Shakespeare]] into "acting versions", often designed to give star actors greater prominence, to the detriment of the play as a whole.{{sfn|Matthews|1969|pp=16–17}}{{sfn|Pierce|2011|pp=120–121}} Shaw was in favour of cuts intended to enhance the drama by omitting what he saw as Shakespearean rhetoric.{{sfn|Pierce|2011|p=127}}|group=n}} He was continually drawn back to Shakespeare, and wrote three plays with Shakespearean themes: ''[[The Dark Lady of the Sonnets]]'', ''Cymbeline Refinished'' and ''Shakes versus Shav''.{{sfn|Pierce|2011|p=131}} In a 2001 analysis of Shaw's Shakespearian criticisms, Robert Pierce concludes that Shaw, who was no academic, saw Shakespeare's plays—like all theatre—from an author's practical point of view: "Shaw helps us to get away from the Romantics' picture of Shakespeare as a titanic genius, one whose art cannot be analyzed or connected with the mundane considerations of theatrical conditions and profit and loss, or with a specific staging and cast of actors."{{sfn|Pierce|2011|p=129}}

===Political and social writings===
Shaw's political and social commentaries were published variously in Fabian tracts, in essays, in two full-length books, in innumerable newspaper and journal articles and in prefaces to his plays. The majority of Shaw's Fabian tracts were published anonymously, representing the voice of the society rather than of Shaw, although the society's secretary [[Edward R. Pease|Edward Pease]] later confirmed Shaw's authorship.{{sfn|Fabian Tracts: 1884–1901}} According to Holroyd, the business of the early Fabians, mainly under the influence of Shaw, was to "alter history by rewriting it".{{sfn|Holroyd|1989|p=132}} Shaw's talent as a pamphleteer was put to immediate use in the production of the society's manifesto—after which, says Holroyd, he was never again so succinct.{{sfn|Holroyd|1989|p=132}}

After the turn of the twentieth century, Shaw increasingly propagated his ideas through the medium of his plays. An early critic, writing in 1904, observed that Shaw's dramas provided "a pleasant means" of proselytising his socialism, adding that "Mr Shaw's views are to be sought especially in the prefaces to his plays".{{sfn|Hoffsten|1904|p=219}} After loosening his ties with the Fabian movement in 1911, Shaw's writings were more personal and often provocative; his response to the furore following the issue of ''Common Sense About the War'' in 1914, was to prepare a sequel, ''More Common Sense About the War''. In this, he denounced the pacifist line espoused by Ramsay MacDonald and other socialist leaders, and proclaimed his readiness to shoot all pacifists rather than cede them power and influence.{{sfn|Griffith|1993|p=228}} On the advice of Beatrice Webb, this pamphlet remained unpublished.{{sfn|Holroyd|1989|p=361}}

''The Intelligent Woman's Guide'', Shaw's main political treatise of the 1920s, attracted both admiration and criticism. MacDonald considered it the world's most important book since the Bible;{{sfn|Wallis|1991|p=185}} [[Harold Laski]] thought its arguments outdated and lacking in concern for individual freedoms.{{sfn|Holroyd|1993|pp=128–131}}{{refn|In 1937 the book was reissued, with additional chapters and an extended title, ''The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism, Capitalism, Sovietism and Fascism'', and was published by [[Penguin Books]] as the first in the new paperback series called [[Pelican Books|Pelicans]].{{sfn|Holroyd|1993|p=373}}|group=n}} Shaw's increasing flirtation with dictatorial methods is evident in many of his subsequent pronouncements. A ''New York Times'' report dated 10 December 1933 quoted a recent Fabian Society lecture in which Shaw had praised Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin: "[T]hey are trying to get something done, [and] are adopting methods by which it is possible to get something done".{{sfn|''The New York Times'', 10 December 1933}} As late as the Second World War, in ''Everybody's Political What's What'', Shaw blamed the [[Allies of World War I|Allies]]' "abuse" of their 1918 victory for the rise of Hitler, and hoped that, after defeat, the Führer would escape retribution "to enjoy a comfortable retirement in Ireland or some other neutral country".{{sfn|Shaw: ''Everybody's Political What's What'' 1944|pp=137 and 249}} These sentiments, according to the Irish philosopher-poet Thomas Duddy, "rendered much of the Shavian outlook passé and contemptible".{{sfn|Merriman|2010|pp=219–220}}

"Creative evolution", Shaw's version of the new science of eugenics, became an increasing theme in his political writing after 1900. He introduced his theories in ''The Revolutionist's Handbook'' (1903), an appendix to ''Man and Superman'', and developed them further during the 1920s in ''Back to Methuselah''. A 1946 ''Life'' magazine article observed that Shaw had "always tended to look at people more as a biologist than as an artist".{{sfn|''Life'' editorial: "All honor to his genius&nbsp;...", 12 August 1946|p=26}} By 1933, in the preface to ''On the Rocks'', he was writing that "if we desire a certain type of civilization and culture we must exterminate the sort of people who do not fit into it";{{sfn|Shaw: Preface, ''On the Rocks'' (Section: "Previous Attempts miss the Point") 1933}} critical opinion is divided on whether this was intended as irony.{{sfn|Nestruck|2011}}{{refn|The science historian [[Daniel Kevles]] writes: "Shaw&nbsp;... did not spare the eugenics movement his unpredictable mockery&nbsp;... [he] acted the outrageous buffoon at times."{{sfn|Kevles|1995|p=86}}|group=n}} In an article in the American magazine ''Liberty'' in September 1938, Shaw included the statement: "There are many people in the world who ought to be liquidated".{{sfn|''Life'' editorial: "All honor to his genius&nbsp;...", 12 August 1946|p=26}} Many commentators assumed that such comments were intended as a joke, although in the worst possible taste.{{sfn|Searle|1976|p=92}} Otherwise, ''Life'' magazine concluded, "this silliness can be classed with his more innocent bad guesses".{{sfn|''Life'' editorial: "All honor to his genius&nbsp;...", 12 August 1946|p=26}}{{refn| In the 21st century Shaw's 1930s flirtations with fascism and his association with eugenics have been resurrected by American TV talk-show hosts to depict him as a "monster" and to similarly disparage the causes and institutions with which he was associated, most particularly the Fabian Society and socialism.{{sfn|Nestruck|2011}}|group=n}}

===Fiction===
Shaw's fiction-writing was largely confined to the five unsuccessful novels written in the period 1879–1885. ''Immaturity'' (1879) is a semi-autobiographical portrayal of mid-Victorian England, Shaw's "own ''David Copperfield''" according to Weintraub.{{sfn|Weintraub|2013}} ''The Irrational Knot'' (1880) is a critique of conventional marriage, in which Weintraub finds the characterisations lifeless, "hardly more than animated theories".{{sfn|Weintraub|2013}} Shaw was pleased with his third novel, ''Love Among the Artists'' (1881), feeling that it marked a turning point in his development as a thinker, although he had no more success with it than with its predecessors.{{sfn|Holroyd|1989|pp=96–97}} ''Cashel Byron's Profession'' (1882) is, says Weintraub, an indictment of society which anticipates Shaw's first full-length play, ''Mrs Warren's Profession''.{{sfn|Weintraub|2013}} Shaw later explained that he had intended ''An Unsocial Socialist'' as the first section of a monumental depiction of the downfall of capitalism. [[Gareth Griffiths (academic)|Gareth Griffith]], in a study of Shaw's political thought, sees the novel as an interesting record of conditions, both in society at large and in the nascent socialist movement of the 1880s.{{sfn|Griffith|1993|p=26}}

Shaw's only subsequent fiction of any substance was his 1932 novella ''[[The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God]]'', written during a visit to South Africa in 1932. The eponymous girl, intelligent, inquisitive, and converted to Christianity by insubstantial missionary teaching, sets out to find God, on a journey that after many adventures and encounters, leads her to a secular conclusion.{{sfn|Kent|2008|pp=278–279}} The story, on publication, offended some Christians and was banned in Ireland by the Board of Censors.{{sfn|Kent|2008|p=291}}

===Letters and diaries===
[[File:Bernard-Shaw-1904.jpg|thumb|alt=Caricature of middle-aged bearded man at his ease in an armchair|"The strenuous literary life—George Bernard Shaw at work": 1904 caricature by [[Max Beerbohm]]]]
Shaw was a prolific correspondent throughout his life. His letters, edited by Dan H. Laurence, were published between 1965 and 1988.{{sfn|Wisenthal|1998|p=305}} Shaw once estimated his letters would occupy twenty volumes; Laurence commented that, unedited, they would fill many more.{{sfn|Weales|p=520}} Shaw wrote more than a quarter of a million letters, of which about ten per cent have survived; 2,653 letters are printed in Laurence's four volumes.{{sfn|Crawford|1990|p=148}} Among Shaw's many regular correspondents were his childhood friend [[Edward McNulty]]; his theatrical colleagues (and ''[[platonic love|amitiés amoureuses]]'') [[Mrs Patrick Campbell]] and [[Ellen Terry]]; writers including [[Lord Alfred Douglas]], H. G. Wells and G. K. Chesterton; the boxer [[Gene Tunney]]; the nun [[Laurentia McLachlan]]; and the art expert [[Sydney Cockerell]].{{sfn|Holroyd|1997|pp=94–95 (McNulty); 197–198 (Terry); 534 (Chesterton); 545–547 (Campbell); 604–606 (Tunney); 606–610 (Cockerell and McLachlan); and 833 (Wells)}}{{refn|Individual volumes have been published of the correspondence with Terry (issued 1931), Tunney (1951), Campbell (1952), Douglas (1982) and Wells (1995).{{sfn|Pharand: Shaw chronology 2015}}|group=n}} In 2007 a 316-page volume consisting entirely of Shaw's letters to ''The Times'' was published.{{sfn|Pharand: Shaw chronology 2015}}

Shaw's diaries for 1885–1897, edited by Weintraub, were published in two volumes, with a total of 1,241 pages, in 1986. Reviewing them, the Shaw scholar Fred Crawford wrote: "Although the primary interest for Shavians is the material that supplements what we already know about Shaw's life and work, the diaries are also valuable as a historical and sociological document of English life at the end of the Victorian age." After 1897, pressure of other writing led Shaw to give up keeping a diary.{{sfn|Crawford|1988|pp=142–143}}

===Miscellaneous and autobiographical===
Through his journalism, pamphlets and occasional longer works, Shaw wrote on many subjects. His range of interest and enquiry included [[vivisection]], vegetarianism, religion, language, cinema and photography,{{refn|Shaw was an enthusiastic amateur photographer from 1898 until his death, amassing about 10,000 prints and more than 10,000 negatives documenting his friends, travels, politics, plays, films and home life. The collection is archived at the London School of Economics; an exhibition of his photography, "Man & Cameraman", opened in 2011 at the [[Lacock Abbey|Fox Talbot Museum]] in conjunction with an online exhibition presented by the LSE.{{sfn|Kennedy, ''The Guardian'', 5 July 2011}}|group=n}} on all of which he wrote and spoke copiously. Collections of his writings on these and other subjects were published, mainly after his death, together with volumes of "wit and wisdom" and general journalism.{{sfn|Pharand: Shaw chronology 2015}}

Despite the many books written about him (Holroyd counts 80 by 1939){{sfn|Holroyd|1993|p=367}} Shaw's autobiographical output, apart from his diaries, was relatively slight. He gave interviews to newspapers—"GBS Confesses", to ''[[The Daily Mail]]'' in 1904 is an example{{sfn|Hugo|1999|pp=22–23}}—and provided sketches to would-be biographers whose work was rejected by Shaw and never published.{{sfn|Leary|1971|pp=3–11}} In 1939 Shaw drew on these materials to produce ''Shaw Gives Himself Away'', a miscellany which, a year before his death, he revised and republished as ''Sixteen Self Sketches'' (there were seventeen). He made it clear to his publishers that this slim book was in no sense a full autobiography.{{sfn|Holroyd|1993|p=495}}