Shaw's Black Girl: Layers of Ideas

Leon Hugo. Bernard Shaw's "The Black Girl in Search of God": The Story Behind the Story. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2003. The Florida Bernard Shaw Series. xvi + 170 pp. Index. $55.00 (cloth).

In February of 2001, I received a communication from Leon Hugo. He was interested in getting involved in matters pertaining to Shaw, such as proofing articles for SHAW and writing reviews for future issues. In that same correspondence, he gave me an update of his project on The Black Girl. He indicated that he had to put it on hold in June/July last but that he was now getting back into it. He wrote, "Not a long text, can't be by its very nature, but I hope to be able to augment it with lots of black and white pictures—Farleigh's, Shaw's and those that appeared with the 'rebuttals' that followed publication of the BG. My hope is to get it published as one of the Shaw Series of the University Press of Florida. Dick Dietrich seems keen to see it. My estimated submission date is mid-year." It is interesting to note that he did indeed finish his project as noted, that he not only gained the support of Dick Dietrich for the publication of the work in the Florida Bernard Shaw Series, but he also got Dick to write the Foreword. Also of note is the reference that Hugo makes to the black-and-white pictures with which he hoped to augment the text. Between chapters 3 and 4 there are eleven pictures, four from the Farleigh woodcuts that appeared in the 1932 and later publications of The Adventures of The Black Girl in Her Search for God. These four woodcuts are paired with the sketches Shaw had made to illustrate his text. They clearly demonstrate that Shaw had the eye of an illustrator but needed the execution of an artist. Farleigh was indeed a great discovery, and according to Hugo his reputation soared after The Black Girl was published. He seems to have fallen into the Shavian playfulness when he includes the face of Shaw on the title-page woodcut that depicts the naked black girl in the jungle with African and Christian icons. What is surprising, however, is that Shaw allowed the Christian icon of Christ on the cross to stand, but he may have done so to emphasize his view that Christianity had become Crosstianity. Hugo includes three other illustrations taken from the cover designs or title pages of publications that were rejoinders to Shaw's work. One is from C. H. Maxwell's Adventures of the White Girl in Her Search for God, one from W. R. Matthews's The Adventures of Gabriel in His Search for Mr. Shaw, and the other from Marcus Hyman's The Adventures of the White Girl in Her Search for Knowledge. If you have seen the Farleigh woodcuts printed by R & R. Clark, Limited, Edinburgh, in The Adventure of the Black Girl in Her Search for God, you will acknowledge their superiority over all others as well as the power they evoke in illuminating the text. As Leon Hugo informs us, the woodcuts themselves added to the controversy that followed the book's publication. One critic did not want Farleigh's drawings to go unchallenged. This unidentified writer wrote: "I should be surprised if the illustrations have not done more harm than the text." It is a shame that this unnamed critic did not go into more detail so that we could understand the nature of the objections. Regretful as that may be, we do know that that critic wanted to harass both artist and author so that "they might enjoy a well deserved burning together."

Besides Dietrich's Foreword, there are six chapters, each devoted to varying aspects of the composition of The Black Girl, before and after publication. Dietrich narrates...