Shaw and Classical Literature: A Selected Bibliography
Rent from DeepDyve- Shaw and Classical LiteratureA Selected Bibliography
1. Primary Sources
This section lists books that Shaw owned—and most likely read—that either were written by authors from classical antiquity or deal with that period. The main source of this section has been the catalogue of the library at Shaw’s Corner, Ayot St Lawrence. This catalogue, despite being available online, seems to have been compiled some time ago (the entries for some authors born in the late nineteenth century do not record their date of death, for example) and it lacks certain bibliographical details; for example, some titles are fragmentary whereas certain author names are misspelled. Thus, quite a bit of sleuthing has been necessary to complete the missing data—to the extent that sometimes one cannot be sure, without having access to the actual books, whether the editions listed are those Shaw indeed owned. For example, Shaw is likely to have had the British edition whenever a book was published in the United Kingdom and the United States simultaneously, but this must remain—of necessity—a hypothesis. Fortunately, many of these works are now out of copyright and can be freely accessed online in high-quality digitized editions—although not always the same year edition. Whenever possible, these have been linked for ease of reference.
Apart from the titles in the aforementioned catalogue, many of the books that Shaw owned—in excess of eight hundred—were sold to Sotheby’s in 1949 and later auctioned, in an operation that involved a number of errors and books sold by mistake.1 The Sotheby’s catalogue lists many of the books grouped together as one lot, so part of the bibliographical information is [End Page 181] lost. Fortunately, some of the highlights of the sale were recorded in Bernard Shaw Flyleaves—even though neither of these sources was consulted for the compilation of this bibliography.2
Works of literature set in ancient times—or those that borrow heavily from classical sources—have not been included (e.g., Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, Dante’s The Divine Comedy, or Handel’s Acis and Galatea). Likewise, (parts of the) Bibles written during the Roman Empire—or that were translated into Latin in the Middle Ages—are not considered here because of their more direct connection with Shaw’s religious interests. In any case, even if we except these works, the publication dates of the volumes below (from the 1870s to the 1940s) and their sheer number demonstrate Shaw’s lifelong interest in classical literature, history, and philosophy. Indeed, among the more than three thousand books at Shaw’s Corner listed at the National Trust website,3 only copies of Shaw’s works, books on political and economic theory, and books on Irish themes are more numerous. Among the classical books, the substantial proportion thereof either authored or translated by Gilbert Murray—Shaw’s close friend—is worthy of note.
