SHAW GIVES MSS TO DUBLIN

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24914, 29 June 1946, Page 5

SHAW GIVES MSS TO DUBLIN

At his home at Ayot St. Lawrence, Herts, on April 23, Mr George Bernard Shaw handed to Mr John Dulanty, the Eire High Commissioner in London, the manuscripts of his early works, the five novels of 1880 to 1882 which he has presented to the National Library in Dublin. Mr Shaw (says a “Manchester Guardian” correspondent) was asked to give the manuscripts by Dr. Hayes, the chief librarian, and he has said that as an Irishman he regarded the desire expressed as a command. As he drafts his work in Pitman’s phonography' and tears up the drafts when, they are typed by his secretary, these early manuscripts are the only ones remaining in his possession. Of his later works, the draft of “Saint Joan” alone escaped destruction because it contained memoranda of dates and places, and Mr Shaw presented it to the British Museum, which, he declares. was of priceless daily service to him for years when “I was a nobody and a failure.”

The manuscripts which have gone to Dublin include “Cashel Byron’s Profession,” “An Unsocial Socialist,” “Immaturity,” and “The Irrational Knot.” They are beautifully bound in 12 large volumes 12 inches by 10, inscribed by Mr Shaw. The manuscripts were bundles of single leaves of common exercise-book paper often out of order and crumpled. Some of them were even mouse-eaten.

The first thing was to collate them and get them into order, a difficult job but not nearly so difficult as it might have been, as, unlike that of some authors, Mr Shaw’s writing is very easy to read. A member of the bookbinding firm of Douglas Cockerell and Son, which did the work, said that each sheet had to be cleaned with a rubber, ironed flat, and any tears or parti removed by mice repaired. Each sheet was then mounted on hand-made paper and the whole job took between 500 and 600 hours.